


Teach me How to Crawl, I'll Teach you How to Fly

by thefrenchmistake



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Families of Choice, Friendship, Gen, Grant Ward Redemption, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Torture, Not Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 2 Compliant, Past Brainwashing, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:34:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23874763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefrenchmistake/pseuds/thefrenchmistake
Summary: They place him in solitary confinement with the promise that he’ll never see the sun again.Grant Ward tries to make things right and finds both redemption and family on the way.
Relationships: Jemma Simmons & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Kara Lynn Palamas & Grant Ward, Leo Fitz & Grant Ward, Leo Fitz & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons, Skye | Daisy Johnson/Grant Ward
Comments: 23
Kudos: 107





	1. Sometimes Human places create Inhuman monsters

**Author's Note:**

> I have nothing to say for myself.  
> I should have posted on Four Bullet and a Dirty Smile, but my brains decided I should just begin a gigantic story and being the coward I am, I said of course. Warnings for past abuse, past rape and PTSD.  
> Hope you enjoy !

They place him in solitary confinement with the promise that he’ll never see the sun again.

He doesn’t talk. To say what ?

To whom ?

There is no one here but phantoms hovering on the walls dragging him away from sleep and sanity and any hope he could ever have.

He tries to tear off his skin more than once at the idea that everything he did, everything he became led up to this: Garrett being dead, his sorry excuse of a heart in even more pieces than before (you have to build something up to bring it down as hard as Skye did), and his head emptier than the little cell he’s kept in (except for the shadows of his family, those stay sticking on his skin).

It’s ironic -or tragic, he doesn’t really know the difference between the terms anymore- that the cigarette butts and the punches turned into regular Shield interrogation.

He’s kept in the dark most of the time, but when they decide they need something from him, they turn on the lights, blinding and unforgiving, burning his face and 4 seconds after, like clockwork, May walks down the stairs during thirty seconds, drawing it out.

They never drag him to interrogation room or to the goddamn machine piercing through skulls and minds; they know better than to give him a chance to flee, and he knows better than to believe he’ll get out one day.

Once she sets a foot on the hard ground, she moves her eyes on him, and doesn’t seem to close them until the blood on her fists stains her shirt as well or he passes out with her pupils, dark as coal, staring right at him.

She asks him questions (not always) or Coulson, standing on the side, does. He would yield, if he could find his tongue, if he could find the answers they’re looking for in the cracks of his soul. If he could regain touch with reality and escape the meanders of his brains.

But there’s nothing to say.

Once, after May leaves without a word, Grant doesn’t turn to the ground like he usually does, he turns to the wall and smashes his head in to stop the voice screaming “ _Garrett is dead you have nothing you are nothing_ ”.

The incredible pain comes as a relief, urging him to do it over and over, until guards come screaming and tearing him away from the bloodstained wall.

He fights them, harder than he has ever fought anything, because this is it, this is his way out and away from Lorelei’s laughter that echoes right now in the corner of the room, away from Christian’s mocking voice that says he should’ve drowned in the well a long time ago, away from Skye’s “ _I hope he orders you to step into traffic_ ”, away from Garrett’s orders to fucking be down with it because his mission is over and he failed the mission and there is nothing more than the mission.

But Grant Ward has never been lucky, and a well-placed kick behind his knees makes him tumble down to his doom and black out.

Despite Coulson’s cold assurance that “it won’t be so easy”, he tries again with a folded piece of paper -the darkness in the med-bay was soothing, empty of all his memories and there is a promise there, a promise of peace and quiet and nothingness that seems so sweet- and he cuts his forearms as deep as he can, under the sheets in his bed so they won’t see it on the monitors until it’s too late.

This time, when his vision blurs and he blacks out, there is no sound other than the blood cursing though his veins, not for long, and there might be something like a smile on his face but he can never be sure.

Before he even opens his eyes, he almost throws up at the realization that he’s not dead, he’s still here, and he’ll be here for the rest of his life and he _failed again_. “ _Stop blaming me for your own failure !_ ” has never sounded so loud. John Garrett chuckles darkly somewhere on his right.

There might be tears rolling down the side of his face but he doesn’t notice.

Lorelei seems to build herself a home in his cell as well as she did in the hotel’s bed, on top of him and in his mind’s most secluded corners.

He wonders, after the very bad nights, the very dark ones where her fingers trail on his body and her lips suck on his skin, if they put some drug in his sole meal of the day, to conjure the worst part of him.

It would explain a whole lot of things.

Grant has always been subject to nightmares, or more to reliving what he once did; his life is filled with enough dark material for his head to build and shatter and shape bad dreams.

And those, the ones he gets some nights in his too little bed, they aren’t familiar, they’re too real, so real he wakes up choking on her dark curls and her smooth skin and her laughter at his desperate attempts at resistance because what could a fucked up mortal do against a goddess ?

(he pleads “ _stop_ ” more times than he wants to admit, but nothing ever changes so eventually he shuts his mouth).

He gets up and exercises, because exhausting himself to sleep has always been the best way for him to get rid of those nightmares and to ignore the many questions festering in his head -Is Fitz ok, Is Simmons ok, Is Skye still looking for her father, What did his betrayal do to them, all of them, why the hell is he still alive ?-.

The thing is, with those night terrors and no clock, no hour, no real time passes by and Ward is slowly losing his grip on reality, on top of not knowing which identity he must adopt (there are so many, there have been so many the past years, he has no idea who he is or if it matters).

And when Skye gets down there, hair and eyes capturing all the warmth left in the cell, Lorelei and Garret’s voices quiet down.

Even the worst insults she spits in his face are poetry compared to the sultry tone of the Asgardian witch and the barking orders of his dead mentor. He gives her the information she seeks because he needs to be useful to her, he needs to have a role, a purpose, and if reuniting her with her father can be his new purpose, he’ll gladly take it.

Many things happen in a short lapse of time.

They decide to sell him to his brother, and what exactly did he expect ? It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does. However, he does not have the time to dwell on the pain, because he knows that if he’s ever released in Christian’s care, he’ll never see the sun again, be it because he’ll lock him underground for the rest of his life or because the only thing that awaits him at the dropping site is a bullet through his skull.

After his escape, the first thing he does is confront the problem, namely Christian.

There is no hesitation in the finger that pulls the trigger and ends this whole charade, and there is no regret when he disposes of the weapon.

Closure. It doesn’t feel as good as he would like.

The second thing that happens is a trip to the Barbados. He finally seeks his brother out, knocks on his door a rainy afternoon with a duffel bag and shadows under his eyes darker than his demons.

Thomas hugs him like he hasn’t in years.

The voices die down. 

“I’m sorry,” are the first words that come out of his mouth after roughly telling his little brother the events of the past years.

Thomas looks at him with more sadness in his eyes than Grant can bear, and so he pretends to be fascinated by the dirt on his shoe.

“What for ? Protecting yourself ?”

Grant clenches his hands.

“I don’t know if I made the right call is all I’m saying.”

“Grant.”

He looks up. Thomas’ sandy hair are curlier than the last time he saw him, lighter as well. That’s probably due to constant sun exposure. He travels a lot, finding a home everywhere he goes, moving in and out of countries with a smile on her face and constant hope in his heart. Grant doesn’t know how he does it. He’s a little jealous.

“It was the right call. You don’t have to blame yourself. We left them behind, all of them, and yet as soon as he had the opportunity, Christian tried to take you out. He’s a sadistic piece of shit, God knows what he would’ve done to you.”

“He was still our brother, Thomas, I killed our brother.”

He doesn’t exactly know why he’s underlying that so much, considering Grant doesn’t regret his decision. But he’s used to being blamed for doing things he thought were right. He’s used to making mistakes.

“He was never a brother.”

And that’s the end of it. That’s all there will ever be, really.

“So what now ?”

The ex agent gulps, the dreaded question settling heavily on his chest like a bag of rocks.

“I still have some things to take care of.”

“You’ll take care of them. But first you’re going to stay here with me and build yourself up again. Let’s start with a beer.”

It is so simply put in Thomas’ smiling mouth that Grant finds it very easy to believe it.

Leaving the past in the past is far more complex than just ditching everything and starting a new life.

It’s nights where Grant sleeps outside the little house, on the porch, to be sure to see the sky when he awakes, to be sure he knows at every given moment that he’s not stuck inside a four walled cell.

The whispers don’t stop echoing inside his head, but they begin to lose their grip on him.

The insults and uncertainties and “ _the beginning of what John ?_ ”- “ _You’re gonna wish you cut deeper”_ - _“She thinks I’m a monster”_ \- begin to fade.

He does his share of work to _make_ them disappear, to accept what happened and to move forward because he wants to do better, he wants to be better.

That’s why he goes back to America.

Because when the voices are faint and distant, the only thing left scorching and crystal clear is the promise he made Skye. He intends to keep this promise. 

It’s only when he has two holes in his side and blood pooling underneath him that he realizes it was a mistake -trusting Skye, thinking he could be better, coming back, trying to reunite her with her family, all of it, a mistake.

A fatal one, it appears, as the building around him shatters and breaks down (he briefly wonders if Skye is ok, chases the thought away as quickly as it came).

He is not one to believe in the universe and all this shit, no matter what he told Skye once, so he’s choking on a laugh and a sob because seriously, he’s spent his whole life not getting attached and following orders and the moment he defies both those rules, he gets locked in a cell or shot in the back, and what a joke his entire life has been, really.

It’s when he has accepted that he is dying here -he can’t even get up and how fucking pathetic is that ?- that the universe decides to give him the first nudge in the right direction in the person of Agent 33. She appears in the doorway like a lost animal looking for guidance, and he recognizes that look too well, felt it carved in his features after Garrett’s death.

He had a cell and interrogation sequences.

She doesn’t have anything.

“Help me up. I can get us out of here. Then we’ll figure it all out.”

She complies like he knew she would, because they broke the essence of who she was, that’s what Hydra does, that’s what people do.

Shape other people according to their needs.

Agent 33 is extremely strong for her modest size, and carrying him all the way out doesn’t seem to bother her much. Maybe the brainwashing she suffered included a certain resistance to pain and its displays.

Then they’re in a jet.

He gives her the coordinates to a safe and secluded cabin just before he passes out with the taste of blood in his mouth.

His recovery is painful, long and tiring but doesn’t hold a candle to the woman’s trials.

The screeches and wailings become a constant during the first week of cohabitation -he assures her that although she feels like dying and bringing down the whole world with herself, she’ll be alright, after, it’ll be better- reminding him all too much of a cabin more than ten years ago and a cell more recently. Then come the desperate tentatives of self-harm, and he has to wrestle with her as best as he can in spite of his decreased mobility so she won’t tear her face off.

Her face. That’s another story altogether. Seeing May’s face everyday isn’t easy (it’s still the face of his torturer of a year and a person he betrayed) but he cannot even begin to imagine what it represents for her, being scarred for life wearing a face that isn’t her own.

Despite his awkwardness (he isn’t known for his social skills) he talks to her, a lot, because he finds out it calms her down, anchors her to the current reality and makes her focus on his words instead of Whitehall’s absence and the lack of both purpose and identity in her life.   
They’re far too similar for it to be comfortable.

But Agent 33 - Kara, as she corrects him after two whole weeks, when he hands her the last can of ravioli- is appeased and even comforted after he tells her his story while she checks his wounds.

Astonished, he asks her why.

Uneasy, she shrugs, eyes fixed on the scars that trail on both his forearms.

“It’s easier to know you’re not alone.”

He stays speechless, protestations painfully stuck between his ribs.

Logically speaking, he knows there is a name for what happened to him, there are even many: abuse, brainwashing, depression, suicide attempts...

He just wonders if there is a name, beside monster, for what he became because of it, what he chose to be. He doesn’t think so.

He’s just scared this is all he’ll ever be.

Her staring in the emptiness in silence stops around the fourth week, at the same time his condition improves drastically.

He finds his footing more easily now, can walk longer. He forces his body to go through exercising, and Kara seems to take sport as her new short-term purpose, to evacuate the new-found energy drumming through her veins.

There are still moments where her eyes get lost in the dark, where she unconsciously traces her scar,where he hears her muffled cries into the night. He is pretty sure he’s one of the least qualified people to help her, but he’s all she has for now.

She talks to him now, engages in conversations instead of giving him one-word answers.

He discovers that she’s snarky and has a very dry sense of humor, which she tries to find again in the mess that is her brain. He also finds out she’s extremely blunt, like the time she heavily falls into a chair facing him and asks him point blank:

“You know they were wrong, right ?”

“Who ?” He asks, raising his eyes to meet hers.

“All of them. Shield, Hydra. Skye. They were wrong about you. Because you’re like me.”

He doesn’t ask what she means.

She remembers more and more about her life, about Shield, but she only reveals things in small portions. She seeks him out, now, coming to sit in front of him, tending to his wounds of her own volition. She listens most of the time, but she also talks. He always knows when she wants to talk, because she never fidgets but always takes her time before saying something, mulling it over with a frown pulling her lips down before finally getting it out. It takes time for her to open up, but when she does it feels like an incredible victory.

He’s fine with that.

Grant has always been a very patient person.

After a month and a half, he begins to go out.

They’ve been living off tinned food and non-perishable goods and he honestly can’t take it anymore. Kara can’t go out due to multiple reasons, the main being that she still isn’t comfortable with contact, much less contact with a crowd in an open area, and her face would attract far too much attention. Neither Hydra nor Shield would miss that, and he’s pretty alright with the idea of both organizations thinking they’re dead.

The first time, he limps to the car under her intent gaze, a grocery list clutched in his hand -she had trouble expressing what she would like to eat, but he patiently waited for her to take the pen and scribble down a few vegetables- and he drives into town.

It’s a little town, discreet, where you can have a safe house a few kilometers away and no one will notice, where libraries are still thriving and where no one will question a guy with a cap on and a limp.

He picks as many fresh ingredients as he can, declining the cashier’s help to carry the bags to his car, and on a whim, decides to stop by the bookstore a few blocks away after having bought some clothes for Kara.

He doesn’t trust his tastes in literature, especially for a mind in as delicate a situation as Kara’s, so he seeks the bookseller’s advice. The woman smiles at him and patiently listens to his clumsy explanations on the type of thing he’s looking for, and then manages to recommend five different books.

He buys all of them.

Kara stays completely silent when he hands her the books, holding them with careful hands and an odd expression on her face.

Grant shifts his weight from foot to foot, which sends a sharp pain through his side.

Eventually, he has come to see her face as Kara’s, because she smiles more than May and her smirk makes her eyes twinkle a bit, a nice change from before (when she was scared and frantic and tried to find an exit way or a weapon to slit her own throat with). But now, her features are completely closed and remind him too much of the Cavalry, leading him to flee the situation by grabbing the bags and going into the kitchen.

There is no change in her attitude while he puts away the groceries, wincing every time he has to stretch his arm up.

And then her hands are circling around his torso. He startles, almost loses his balance but her body pressed against his back keeps him upright.

“Thank you,” she mutters between his shoulder blades, a little clipped and a lot uncomfortable but meant wholeheartedly.

He covers one of her hand with his own.

“You’re welcome."

Five minutes later, she has folded her long limbs in the chair and is completely lost in the reading of _East of Eden_. 

Grant smiles.

They’ve been hiding -recovering- for three months when he sits beside her on the porch, waiting for her to look up from _The Little Prince_ with something akin to a question in her eyes before saying:

“What do you want to do now ?”

Kara doesn’t panic like she did the first times he brought up the future, doesn’t freak out and bail like the first time she went into town with him.

No, she just looks at him with that face that isn’t really hers but an expression that belongs to no one else’s and answers:

“What are _you_ going to do ?”

“I need to get back to my brother.”

“Need, or want ?”

He ponders over it for a minute, truly thinking about it, before affirming. 

“Want. And you… You’re welcome to come with, if you want that.”

“Good. I want to stay with you, for now. Someone has got to have your back.”

For the first time in his life, Grant thinks that it would be nice, not to rely solely on himself and knowing you’re not alone in the world.

Kara is tense the entire journey to the Barbados, fidgeting and playing with her hair because she has barely left the safe house during their recovery, and she’s now about to meet his brother.

Thomas opens the door with a smile that doesn’t fall at the sight of her face; Grant counts it as a victory.

“Hey asshole,” he greets with a clap to his shoulder far more violent than necessary.

Thomas sends a smile Kara’s way, takes the duffel bag she is carrying despite her protests and steps inside, throwing over his shoulder:

“Welcome to Paradise. Come in, both of you.”

His partner sends him a glance and Grant shrugs, a little smile on his lips.

“Ok then,” she exhales before entering the house.

Grant follows her, closing the door and hearing his brother give Kara a tour of the little house in excruciating details, finishing with the guest room.

“And you can sleep in here, tough Grant can take the couch.”

“Oh, he can’t,” she replies before he can stop her. “He’ll pull his stitches.”

“What stitches ? Grant Douglas Ward, what stitches ?” Thomas insists, returning to the living room where the ex-agent is already rubbing his temples.

“Douglas ?” Kara chuckles.

He sends her a glare, to which she simply shrugs a shoulder.

“It’s nothing, just a few troubles on the job.”

“Troubles that occupied you for four months ?”

“Well. Yeah.”

His brother seems ready to dive into it but thankfully Kara takes pity on him and interjects:

“Would you by any chance have baby pictures of chubby Grant ?”

The smirk on Thomas’ face is bad news, especially as it widens when Kara chuckles and follows his overly enthusiastic brother out of the room once more.

Watching them go, Grant’s chest twists oddly, though it doesn’t hurt at all.

All the anxiety he had been feeling at the idea of introducing Kara to his brother and his type of life vanishes in the first two days. She fits perfectly here, always a cocktail or a soda in hand, bartending because she’s apparently awesome at that, destroying them when they have a push-up contest, and finding joy in every little thing they do.

She immediately hits it off with his brother, to Grant’s dismay, and soon she laughs and teases both men and makes jokes and lives again. She helps him pick out a house in the South of France, although her remarks consist more in an un-constructive commentary than anything else.

And Grant is glad, so glad, because she is reaching the new Kara Palamas, built from a dangerous equilibrium between the joyful agent of Shield and the tamed, lost victim of Hydra. That’s all he wants for her, to figure out who she is now.

Things are a little darker on his side, but overall he can say he’s better, almost… almost good.As if roots and branches sprinkled with buds are creeping into the cracks of his soul and the crevices of his mind.

“Grant ?” Kara starts one morning. She stuffed her face with pancakes and there is some whipped cream on her cheek, where the scar is largest. Thomas is still sleeping and Ward gulps down his coffee.

“Yeah ?”

“I wanna make Hydra pay. I want this thing off my face. And then I want to get back in business.”

He smirks. Clings his mug against hers.

“What are we waiting for ?”

He’s been doing research for a while now, about her face especially, about who made the Photostatic Veil and who could fix it. The answers are disappointing yet entirely expected: Hydra and Shield.

Considering Shield holds a grudge against him and Ward does not want to bring Kara into a situation where she would be stuck between her agency and him, Ward already has names and addresses of ancient or current Hydra scientists and engineers who helped design the technology.

They try place after place, blowing up Hydra bases as they go, drawing a little too much attention to themselves but alway careful to stay under agencies’ radars.

Their last hope is Selwyn, and they ambush him in a coffeeshop.

It goes as well as one would expect.

Kara has a breakdown when Selwyn announces she won’t be able to get the mask off, that it’s fused to her skin, but that she can still change her features, to which she answers with a punch in the nose and a “I don’t want to be anyone else !”.

A bullet later, they’re back in the car and her silence makes his guts twist.

“Could we go to Tijuana ?” She asks, voice colored with defeat.

It makes him want to cry.

“Yeah. Anything you want.”

She simply nods, leans her head on the window and closes her eyes.

The scar on May’s face has never seemed so red and painful before.

He’s putting boxes full of files in the back of his car when the phone rings. Grant glances at it, relieved when he sees the caller ID. He hasn’t talked to her in weeks, since Selwyn, only exchanging fleeting texts between a mission and the other because she wanted to keep busy.

On his side, he traveled with Thomas (who decided to move there as well and buy a bar, because why the fuck not ?) to France to finalize the buying of the house in Cap Ferret and start buying furniture and first-hand necessities, but he comes to Tijuana once a week, in case she needs him. He’s glad to be here now, descending in a hotel a few blocks from her flat.

He answers.

“Hey, Kara, you alright ?”

“She isn’t.”

His body stiffens, blood turning cold, and he’s already closing his car door and putting the keys in.

“Why don’t you come here and let us have a little chat ?” Coulson taunts, and Ward’s fist comes down on the dash.

Fifteen minutes later, he enters Kara’s little apartment with all his weapons left in his car (except for his Wenoka knife because he isn’t an amateur, and he’s not about to trust Coulson with Kara’s life on the line).

Coulson’s face is affable as ever even as his gun is aimed at Kara’s chest.

Skye, cladded in black with some kind of metal protection on her forearms,stays aside, and he doesn’t allow his eyes to stay on her longer than it takes to evaluate how dangerous a threat she is, in case he needs to grab Kara and run.

“Are you ok ?” He asks his partner before all.

She nods, jaw tight and hatred in her irises.

“I’ll be better once this barrel is out of my face.”

Like she hasn’t said anything, Coulson jerks his head to the side, a silent order for Ward to come forward. Purposefully not turning his back on Skye (his scars itch unpleasantly), he walks until he’s next to Kara, arms crossed on his chest.

“Agent 33 has been kind enough to explain to me you went after Hydra high-ranked scientists to fix her face. I gotta say, the resemblance to May is uncanny. Except the scar, of course, but…”

“What do you want ?” He interrupts.

The director of Shield waves his gun around; the metal of the knife burns his ankle.

“Shield can probably fix that.”

“How ?”

“FitzSimmons are two of the brightest minds the agency has ever enrolled. They can probably figure something out.”

Grant glances at Kara, awaiting for her approval or refusal.

“What do you want in exchange ?” She inquires, apparently unfazed by the fact that Coulson still has his gun on her and he really should move it, because the longer he leaves it there the more Kara’s patience thins out.

Ward can see her fingers clenching (there is no doubt in his mind that she has a knife hidden somewhere on her, and he wonders, if she snaps, if they can take both Coulson and Skye; probably) and he lands a hand on her shoulder. If Coulson shoots, he probably has the time to pull her backwards or down before the bullet hits.

“Von Strucker.”

Ward snorts.

“That guy ? How couldn’t you find him on your own, he is a child.”

“And he doesn’t have any valuable information, nor any value of his own,” Kara chimes in. “If you wanna destroy Hydra, you’ll have to aim a little higher than that.”

“How high ?” Skye asks, and it’s the first thing she says. Her father figure sends her a glare but Ward carefully keeps his eyes on Coulson and lets Kara answer in a snappy voice.

“Gideon Malick high.”

“He’s the one running operations on Whitehall’s subjects, he took his place after his death.”

“Inhumans,” Skye whispers, like it matters, but it doesn’t, not when Shield ambushed them and its director is still holding them at gunpoint.

“You bring Von Strucker in, we help you get your face back,” Coulson says to Kara “And maybe you’ll have a second chance,” he throws at Ward.

This one grits his teeth. He doesn’t want anything from Shield.

Grant looks at Kara, with her jaw clenched and her eyebrows raised defiantly.

The corner of her mouth pulls down the scar tissue, and all he can see is the woman who fought tooth and nail to gain her autonomy and her own identity back, to try and live even as the world crushed her down over and over again.

He turns a resolute glare on Coulson.

“Deal.”

Working with Shield again makes him uneasy, to say the least, the holes on his side and the scars on his arms reminding him constantly of why that’s a very, very bad idea.

But they promised Kara would get her face back, and she deserves this. She deserves to be herself again, wholly.

It just sucks they have to trust Shield in order for that to happen.

Kara and he accepted to go back to the Playground, only because they know Coulson needs them for now and won’t try to lock them up.

They get their weapons out of his car under the careful eye of both Shield agents, although Coulson leaves not long after to take a call. Skye doesn’t say a thing, but her glare burns his side - he never completely turns his back on her, always keeping her form in his periphery- and he wonders if she can somehow feel the scars stretching his skin.

“Grant.”

He turns his head towards Kara, who is gathering ammunition with a frown on her face. 

“Yeah ?”

“You know we don’t have to, right ? If you don’t want to.”

It knocks the breath out of him.

Here is Kara Palamas, ex-agent of Shield, the organization promising her to give her her face back, and probably a job, and yet she’s ready to jeopardize all of it so he… won’t feel obligated ?

His right arm winds around her shoulders and he presses a fleeting kiss to the crown of her head.

“I’m good.”

Her elbow slams in his ribs before she declares:

“Great, cause I need to take this old face off me.”

“I think you’re…”

“Don’t,” she warns, zipping the bag close and hoisting it on her shoulder.

He almost chuckles before turning around and remembering that Skye is watching them.

She glances away quickly, as if she didn’t just eavesdrop on their conversation, and he feels unbelievably annoyed all of a sudden. Hoisting up his own bag, he closes the trunk of the car and announces to her:

“We’re ready.”

Skye nods and turns on her heels, leading them to an empty basketball court a few blocks away. The back of the Quinjet in cloaking opens up, and stepping in feels like a death sentence of some sort. 

He straps down next to Kara, who leans towards him as soon as they take off.

“Say the word and we bail.”

It’s not smooth, fake-whispered in his ear, and it makes him smile a bit. At least they’re in the same boat.

Seeing Fitz again is a painful trial.

Coulson assigns Ward and Kara bunks next to each other near the entry to Vault 10, which is done on purpose and makes anger arise in his stomach. Skye hovers awkwardly through the rules Coulson lists to them - no getting out of the Playground except for the mission, no exploring the base, no going to see the cells (like he would want that), no weapons on them until they get sent into the field…- and then she bails, fading into the meanders of the base like a ghost.

He supposes that’s what she is, now.

After they’re settled and assured they each still have two knives despite the instructions, an agent passing by signals to Kara that “doctor Fitz” would like to see her.

He doesn’t even think about not going, and they follow the rookie to the lab.

Kara’s fingers grip his wrist before they enter the room in which the engineer is waiting for them.

He seems better, although much older. Grant recognizes it, in his eye, the shadow that means he grew up all of a sudden, much too fast and too early. It breaks his heart a little, especially at the thought that he did this, even if it wasn’t intentional.

“Fitz,” he greets when it’s clear the younger man won’t say anything.

“Ward.”

So many things get stuck in his throat and burn his tongue, from apologies to questions, but the thing that comes out is a simple:

“I hope you’re… better.”

“I am.”

Grant nods.

“Agent Palamas, is it ?” He asks, turning to Kara.

He can already see the gears turning in his head when his eyes land on the mask, and he just knows he’s studying everything he can from a distance. It makes Grant nostalgic, which is not good.

“Kara.”

“I’m Leopold Fitz, I’ll help take the Photostatic Veil off.”

“I was assured you were the best, so I hope you won’t screw this up.”

“Oh, I’m not exactly, the best,” Fitz blushes, waving his hands around nervously at the praise, “I don’t know what Coulson…”

“Not Coulson. Grant talked a lot about you.”

He pinches her side, drawing next to no reaction from her, and surpasses the odd thing that threatens to choke him.

The engineer opens his mouth but doesn’t have time to answer -thank God- as his other half steps into the room, eyes immediately targeting him.

The air seems to crackle, and Fitz has the brilliant idea to request Kara follow him in the room next door so he can take a closer look at her face. At the silent question she sends him with a glance, he nods in reassurance.

“Ward,” Simmons spits as soon as they’re out, hands already balled into fists, and he doesn’t find it in himself to blame her but he can’t find the guilt either - _it was supposed to float_ -. “Still not dead, as I can see.”

“Not for lack of trying,” he smiles, clipped.

The biochemist doesn’t seem to get the point, and he supposes neither she nor Fitz know about the three suicide attempts or Skye’s shots.

Maybe it’s better that way.

“If you screw us over I’ll…”

“Look,” he interjects, losing his temper, “Coulson came to find us. We didn’t ask for this, we were living on the down low. Shield came to us, so you don’t have to worry about seeing me again after that. We accomplish the mission, you get Kara’s mask off, and then we’re gone.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“That’s your problem, not mine.”

She opens her mouth, obviously ready to launch into a long tirade of why and how he is a monster and should be put down without mercy, but Skye steps into the room.

He abruptly readjusts his position to face her.

“Coulson wants to do a briefing with everyone,” she announces.

He nods, before turning his head towards Simmons.

“Look, I know you hate me, but… But Kara has nothing to do with what happened between us, and she needs that mask gone. Don’t make her pay for my mistakes.”

“Who do you think I am ? Of course I’m gonna…”

“Good.”

He turns on his heels, stops dead in his tracks when Skye appears to hang back so he would get out before her.

He stares at her. She stares back.

She doesn’t seem to get it.

“You can go first,” he draws out.

“What ?” She asks, eyebrows frowning above her confused eyes.

He jerks his head towards the hallway, and it takes around eight seconds for her to catch his drift.

She grits her teeth.

“I’m not gonna shoot you.”

“And I’m not gonna make the same mistake twice.”

“That makes both of us, then,” she spits before storming out, stomping like a child.

She seethes in silence for two minutes as they walk, him a step behind her, and then she can’t contain herself , turning her head (he always told her that would be her doom, never able to be level-headed and keep her cool, but he liked it).

“We don’t go around shooting people for fun, at Shield.”

“Yeah ? You had me convinced in Tijuana.”

Skye’s shoulders stiffen and she throws above her shoulder:

“Coulson wouldn’t have shot her.”

Ward almost laughs at her blind faith, but he figures it won’t be well received so he settles on a disbelieving look sent her way.

“Really. Even if we had refused his offer ?”

She doesn’t answer.

She doesn’t have to.

The door to the briefing room, when she opens it, slams against the wall, surprising everyone already in it.

He takes the seat farthest from her, near the window. The woman on his left is blonde and completely unbothered by his presence. May has daggers in her eyes but then again, she always looks murderous. Skye’s leg is jittery as soon as she sits down, which puts him on edge.

Coulson’s fingers drum on the table.

All in all, a merry little band.

They wait around five minutes in complete disregard of each other, except for May and Coulson communicating through silent looks.

Then Kara steps into the room, a sort of lightness in her steps that vanishes as soon as her eyes land on his left. Her mouth opens and it’s the most enraged he’s ever heard her.

“Fuck no.”

“Hi Kara.”

“I’m not working with her.”

“Agent Morse is indispensable to this mission, she has valuable information…”

“I am not working with her,” Kara shouts, smashing both hands on the table.

The answering silence is too heavy. His eyes find Skye, whose leg stopped bouncing and whose expression is one of utter confusion. He guesses secrets are still Shield’s go-to when facing the truth and the consequences of one’s actions is too uncomfortable.

Morse is staring at her ex-coworker with a mask of indifference he knows all too well.

“Kara, we can be profe…”

“Don’t,” this one snarls at her, eyes dancing with lightning, and he sees her arms shake with anger. “You did this to me.”

She turns towards Coulson, ignoring every other people in the room.

“If you want us to get Von Strucker for you, you’ll have to sit her out for this one.”

“You’re in no position to make demands, 33…”

“I will not work with the woman who sold me to Hydra. Consider yourself lucky I don’t slit her throat here and now.”

“It’s ok Coulson,” the blonde woman says. “Hunter can take my place. I’ll get him caught up.”

She unfolds her long limbs, and Kara stares at her form until she disappears, door closing softly behind her, and lets herself fall heavily in the now vacant chair on his left.

The director doesn’t seem to like this turn of events, but he nods all the same and turns towards them.

“Von Strucker literally disappeared from our radar at his father’s death and the shut down of Baron Von Strucker’s program and experimentations on the Inhumans.”

“The experimentations are far from over,” Grant interrupts.

Everyone’s eyes turn on him, which makes him _highly_ uncomfortable. He smirks.

“You think Dr Whitehall’s goal was Hydra’s ? Far from it. Each of Hydra’s head had their own agenda. You already know Von Strucker experimented on people to turn them into Inhumans, to _give_ them power. But Malick does not aim at that. The experimentations he did on the Inhumans he found led to either exploitation of their skills through Faust’s brainwashing or simple execution.”

“Execution ?”

“When they have nothing useful to offer, Hydra gets rid of them. Isn’t that the motto of every agency ?” Kara taunts, a tight smile dancing on her lips.

Nobody answers -what the hell could they respond ?- so Grant pushes on.

“Malick’s goal is to bring back the ultimate Inhuman or whatever, something he could take power from, something he could use to….”

“What’s the link with Von Strucker ?” May asks, ever the straightforward one.

“Malick wants to take over Hydra, and Von Strucker Junior is a damn idiot, but an entitled idiot. Malick wants to use his legacy, his name, his money, everything his father left to him in order to invest in research and experiments.”

“Why does he need him ?”

“I’m not sure he does. Maybe he’s waiting for the other heads to kill each other so he can work from the shadows behind Von Strucker. Malick is a smart man. If he can cover his ass, that’s what he’ll do.”

“I did some research,” Skye says quietly. “After you told us about Malick. Turns out Von Strucker Senior was extremely close to him, both in work and outside of work. So Junior turned towards Malick after the death of his father, and asked him for both security and a way out of the country. Malick provided him with both. He went to Lisbon, and seems to be there, still.”

“You have the address ?” Coulson inquires.

“Yep.”

“We just need a plan,” May starts. “Maybe surveillance for a day or two to establish how many bodyguards and Hydra agents there are in the building.”

“There won’t be much,” Grant assures. “Malick doesn’t give a shit about what happens to Von Strucker, he’s just waiting to be sure he’s lost all his utility.”

“In any case, we’re not gonna dive headfirst into it, we need blueprints and a minimum of preparation,” Kara remarks. “Grant might get past the building security, as I assume there is, without being recognized, but I can’t go with him unless…”

“I’m not leaving you behind before-”

“You think I’m gonna leave you two alone together ?” Coulson interrupts with something akin to bewilderment in his tone. “In your dreams, Ward.”

“Then how the hell do you want us to get him for you ?” Ward snaps back, patience wearing thin.

“You won’t be the only two in the field. I’m not about to leave you unsupervised on a Shield operation, Ward.”

Like nobody else, Coulson has the skill to make him unbelievably angry.

“We’ll see what teams are best once we decide on a plan.”

The morning after, they take a Quinjet to Lisbon, and the ride is oddly normal. Lance Hunter, the one replacing Bobbi, arrived with a friendly smirk and an expert eye on weapons, two good points for Ward.

Then he introduced himself to Kara and fake-whispered to her “You look hotter than May anyway”, which makes her snicker and earns him three more points in Ward’s esteem (both for making her laugh and for saying that to May’s terrifying face).

Unfortunately, Coulson seems to make it his life’s mission to put Ward in the most uncomfortable situations, and so naturally he declares that he is the one on surveillance duty, and of course he needs supervision. Hunter still needs to be caught up with everything, and May might “kill him if she’s tempted for too long” and so Skye is the next choice.

He isn’t sure she has as much restrain as May, but he also thinks Coulson does it on purpose, to show him a lot of things at once -that she’s unreachable, that she will never need him like he first thought, that Shield is her family and trying to reunite her with her father was the worst mistake he’s ever made- and Grant guesses the director takes pleasure in his discomfort.

Skye’s emotions are evident on her face, so he tries not to look at her too much. He doesn’t want to know what she feels, what she thinks, what she’s gonna say.

He doesn’t want anything to do with her, really.

They drop the others off in their hotel, because the gear is in the jet and they have to move it into their room before the Quinjet goes to lay low in a nearby spot (they can’t exactly stroll down the streets with military riffles on their shoulders) and so during the rest of the flight, the silence is heavy between them. He’s happy to focus on the weapons at hand, the heat prompting him to roll his sleeves up and try not to move too much.

Until Skye provokes him as he’s studying the Remington Mk 13:

“Careful not to shoot yourself in the face.”

“At least it would be in the head, not in the back.”

The pilot shrinks in her seat.

Skye bristles.

“You’re still not over that ?”

“Not really, no.”

“Just be glad I didn’t put one in your skull.”

“You might have missed. You’re still a lazy shot.”

“What ?” She snaps, eyes impossibly dark.

“Two out of four shot in the back ?” He points out. “Thought May would be a better teacher.”

“At least she’s honest.”

He snorts.

“Honest ? May ? Right.”

“Shut the fuck up, Ward. You don’t get to talk about my family like that, not when you betrayed all of us.”

“And I’m the one still not over it, uh ?”

She doesn’t answer, violently putting the magazine back into the gun while staring at him with a death glare. A few minutes pass and he can _feel_ her anger but he chooses not to pay any attention to his temporary partner. Apparently that’s not her case, as he turns around five minutes later to put the last bullets in the bag and her eyes are fixed on his forearms.

He looks down.

The marks on his wrists make him sick now, and he can’t even think about his time in the cell because in his nightmares, he’s back there, except this time no one stops Fitz, except this time there is no barrier between him and Skye’s fury, except this time May’s punches don’t stop at his fractured larynx (they didn’t stop back then either until he had given the information awaited or passed out).

He pulls the sleeves down, sending her a dark look, but she doesn’t seem to care, brows still frowning.

“You should get ready.”

He doesn’t await her to pick up the rifle through which he’ll watch the flat, checking once more the ammunition he has in a bag and the handgun in his belt.

When he turns around, Skye has shed her jacket to take off the metal things squeezing her forearms, and the words get stuck somewhere in his throat. There are bruises, ugly and huge and too numerous to be from training, all the way up her arms, even creeping up her neck.

It seems to hurt.

He shouldn’t care. Right ? She shot him, left him for dead. He shouldn’t give a shit about some bruises.

Fuck. He does.

He wishes he could care freely, wishes he could ask her why her hope seems squashed, why there are bruises on her lips instead of laughter. He shouldn’t want any of it, has never wanted it before her. But since meeting Skye, he has caught himself wanting things he never used to; a lot.

“You should cover your arms,” he just states, eyes on the floor and unconcern soaking his voice.

She doesn’t answer, but he sees her put her jacket back on from the corner of his eye.

He doesn’t feel better.

They enter the hotel, Skye’s badge an entry pass to literally anything, and they get a room on the tenth floor, one floor above Von Strucker’s flat.

There is one queen size bed, which doesn’t matter in the least firstly because they’ll take turns sleeping and writing down the shifts in security on the building across the street, and secondly because there is no way in hell he’ll share a bed with Skye under any circumstance.

He takes to setting up the Remington Mk 13 on the bipods and adjusting the telescopic sight lens so it’s aimed at the flat while Skye puts a camera on a bipod.

Oddly, it’s not filled with hatred. Animosity, of course, but despite her words earlier, it doesn’t feel like she wants to kill him, more like she wants to punch him in the face (it’s…progress, he supposes). Surveillance will probably last for two days at most; they can’t afford to waste any time.

It’s a one and done, and once this is over Kara, with her real face, and he will be sipping cocktails in the south of France.

Honestly, he can’t wait.

Grant sits behind the rifle scope, already scribbling down the number of agents he sees.

“So, heard you killed your brother. Guess monstrosity runs in the family.”

“Any father you wiped the memory of lately?” He snaps back, because he will not have his decisions about Christian questioned by her, by the people who sold him back to him and would’ve doomed him to torture or death solely for information. It’s not really surprising. It just highlights the hypocrisy of it all.

“Any poor brainwashed girl you used for your own purpose lately ?”

“Don’t talk about her.”

“Don’t talk about my family and I won’t talk about your toy.”

“She is my family. Which means I’ll do whatever it takes to complete that mission but if you keep talking I’m not above knocking you out.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Skye says, pulling a long face and clutching her hand.

Grant sighs. He is too tired to fight her, to fight with her or for her. She hasn’t changed, only her enthusiasm and joy have withered. But beyond that, she is still as naive as when they first met and he pulled her cheeky self out of a beat-up van with a bag over her head.

She is still looking for a fight where there’s just weariness, still looking for a home where people keep turning on themselves and still looking for goodness in the middle of wars.

He’s stopped fighting a long time ago (be it his demons at night or the label the world imposed on him) and he can’t find it in himself to give her something to push back against.

So he chooses the coward way out and decides to return to blatantly ignoring her.

Although he doesn’t exactly like it, he’s used to both silence and solitude, so those hours of stake out could go smoothly.

Except Skye is still Skye. To his dismay, she can’t stop her mouth running.

“How did get out of Puerto Rico alive anyway ?” She asks after he’s counted to 320 in his mind. 

His hand tightens on the rifle. He keeps his eye on the lens.

“Kara.”

“Why would she do that ?”

“Because Whitehall was dead and she had just lost all purpose in her life.”

Skye snorts on his right, a little closer than before.

He can smell her shampoo, something flowery that reminds him of the mimosa in the garden, back in Cap Ferret.

“So you took advantage of her.”

“Either we both got out of there, or I bled out and she killed herself. Shield had left her without a second thought and Hydra didn’t care. She was alone. And you’re one to talk about taking advantage of people.”

“What does that mean ?” She bristles, and he curses himself.

He should not let himself get sucked into her provocations, he should focus on the task and think about his house and the beach and…

“Isn’t that exactly what you did with me ? What you’re doing now ?”

“That has nothing…”

“Really ?”

“It’s a transaction,” she spits,closer still.

“Yeah, because Shield couldn’t afford taking the mask off one of _their own agent_ without anything in return. You couldn’t help a brainwashed, tortured, beaten woman without blackmail. That’s the beauty of Shield, isn’t it ?”

She doesn’t answer, but he can still smell her shampoo and now he feels her warmth so he pushes on.

“It shouldn’t be a transaction, it should be normal.”

“It is normal. We’re giving her something, we’re offering…”

“And when I was locked up ? Was that a transaction, too ?”

He feels her recoil, and her scent goes away, so he’s glad.

An hour or so is spent in silence filled with her chewing whatever snack she’s brought along and his taking notes on the security in the building facing theirs. He has yet to see Von Strucker, but he is sure the kid is there; he recognized a few agents and he’s professional enough to acknowledge Skye knows her way around computers. If she says he’s here, he’s here.

“Why doesn’t Palamas want to work with Bobbi ?”

He restrains himself from thumping his head on the wall. Instead, he throws her a dirty look, with no reaction whatsoever.

“Are you serious ?”

Skye keeps staring at him.

“So you expect me to reveal all of Shield’s secrets now, because you can’t ask your own director ?”

“Ward.”

“Morse is the one who gave up Kara’s location,” he yields.

There is a little part of him secretly hoping that it will make her understand, that it will open her eyes about what Shield really is.

“Honestly, she could have given any other safe-house, an empty one for the matter, Hydra just wanted secret information. So she’s the reason Kara was captured, and then tortured, and brainwashed. She didn’t communicate her location to Shield, she didn’t try to get her out, she just… climbed the ranks and forgot about her.”

“She didn’t. She blames herself.”

“And she should. Regret doesn’t make things right, especially when the person just feels bad but would do it all over again.”

“You don’t know Bobbi, she…”

“I’ve seen enough to recognize her type. She’s a field agent, she’s used to making sacrifices and not thinking twice about them. She does what best works for her cover, even if it means she disappears behind it.”

“Is that what you did ?”

His whole body stiffens, and he makes it a point to locate throughout the flat all the agents he’s already counted before he says:

“I thought we weren’t talking about me.”

“Maybe we’re talking about me.”

That one lands. Hard.

“I already told you. It wasn’t planned, it just happened.”

“Why did you let it happen ?”

A heavy sigh escapes him, and he turns around because there is no chance he’ll be able to focus if she throws everything back in his face, if she reminds him of being her SO and the game boards and the goddamn _kisses_.

“I told you once and I meant it, you woke up something inside me. Now it’s over, it’s past, I’m sorry, can we go back to work ?”

“Maybe you woke up something inside me as well.”

It hurts too much to think about maybes and what could’ve been, so he turns to face building across the street in order to keep his mind occupied.

“Yeah well it’s a good thing it’s all behind us now.”

Skye doesn’t respond.

The problem is that the agents hired for Von Strucker’s protection are from a private company linked with a branch of the local police, as Skye informs him once they’ve put names on their faces, so Malick is really covering his ass. Which means no leaving traces that could be directly linked to Shield (no I.C.E.R.S), no killing due to the risk of hitting a policeman and not a Hydra agent, and no attacks full front.

They need to rely on discretion and stealth in order to avoid any collateral damage, too noticeable outburst, and any risk of facial recognition.

Which complicates things, to say the least.

“I’m so hungry,” he hears her mutter.

He sends her a look but she’s still sitting on the floor, looking at the other building through the binoculars.

Torn up, he takes a minute to think before closing the file he’s currently reading on Von Strucker’s experimentations (to see if there is any chance Inhumans are part of the security team) and stretches before eventually suggesting:

“Come on, let’s go get some food.”

That gets her attention, and she turns her head so hard he hears her neck crack.

“Seriously ?”

“We have a camera set up, we wrote down the entire security team and their shifts during the whole day and most of the night, and Von Strucker has been asleep for like three hours. We can go eat something.”

“Yeah. Yeah, ok,” she repeats, nodding and scurrying to her feet.

Biting his lip not to laugh, he lets her put her jacket on and exit the room first before following suit, locking the door behind them.

Her hands are tucked in her jacket pockets, her lip is trapped beneath her teeth and her bangs seem to reflect the light every time they pass a lamp post. The dark circles under her eyes and the bruises he can see on her neck don’t lessen in any way her strange, mystical beauty.

It makes him uneasy.

“What do you want to eat ?”

“Oh my God, I’ve been dreaming about pasta since we landed.”

“Whatever do you mean, the chips you ate didn’t suffice ?”

“Do not launch into the “vegetables are good for responsible adults” rant.”

“I won’t.”

Because there is no restaurant open at 3 am, they take three courses of pasta to go (one pesto, one carbonara and one spinach ravioli, to which Skye scrunches up her nose in disgust) and they get back into their room.

Skye dives in the carbonara one before he even has the time to sit down, eating far too fast, but he doesn’t say anything, just keeps focus on repressing the smile that threatens to bloom on his face.

“Go on,” he says around fifteen minutes afterwards, when she’s been staring at his spinach with so much intensity he feels observed.

“What ?”

“Take one, I don’t care. If it can get you to like spinach…”

“It doesn’t count,” she grumbles. “Anything can be good if you just put it in a ravioli and put some cheese on it. It’s science.”

He’s very tempted to say that no, it’s far from science, but she leans in and takes his stupid spinach ravioli and then he doesn’t know why his brains decide to be absolutely subjugated by her lips and the way they’re chapped and the way her jaw works and…

And he has real problems in his life, you see ?

The plan is so very simple it has an 85% chance of going wrong.

He’s dealt with worse odds, honestly.

Distraction, extraction. Easy Peasy.

Except he gets teamed up with Skye, whom he doesn’t exactly trust with his life, and Kara gets sent off with Hunter, which means he won’t have any way of knowing they didn’t ditch her somewhere to be captured by Hydra again. He knows she can handle herself, but he’d rather have her with him to watch his 20.

Ward doesn’t look at Skye, doesn’t even glance in her direction when Coulson sends them off.

The plan works to perfection. Hunter and Kara come up with a distraction; intrusion, explosion, everything is far from discreet which isn’t really a surprise considering both persons’ personalities, but allows him to get inside the building with next to no resistance.

After taking out two agents, he grabs a screeching Von Strucker by the neck and drags him through the building (at one point he can’t stand his screaming anymore so he tapes his mouth). Skye is in the other building, covering his exit (although he takes care of every person that gets in his way, refusing to rely on her) and getting Von Strucker out is easy, almost too easy.

But then they they get out the back, which means Skye won’t be able to cover his route from here to the rendezvous point, and of course a group of Hydra agents, definitely not expected, spots them.

He throws Von Strucker to the side and gets one down before their weapons are even drawn. Beating the other two are no difficulty, but the last one is fierce and gets one kick right in his side, where he feels the stitches pull. A little dizzy, he sees her prepare a punch and throws his hands up but he knows it’s too late.

The woman holds her fist back just before it hits him straight in the nose. She tilts her head. Recognition passes on her face at the same moment he recognizes her.

“Ward ?”

“Linda ?”

The blonde smiles, a sharp laughter bursting out of her, before punching him in the shoulder instead of the face.

“What the fuck are you doing here ?”

“I’m on a job, what are you doing here ?”

“I’m supposed to kill this dumbass. Why are you…”

“I’m supposed to kidnap this dumbass.”

Von Strucker, still crouched on the ground, makes a sound under the tape.

She snorts, putting her gun back in her holster.

“Well I’m not about to shoot you, so you can go. We don’t give a shit about him.”

“Then why the display of strength ?”

The blonde shrugs, putting a strand of hair behind her hear like they’re not standing in a mess of weapons and bodies.

“Malick doesn’t want anyone to get in his way, and giving the kid’s location to other heads of Hydrahelped him secure his position as well. Now, stop praying and get out of here before we get caught.”

“I thought you’d have left Hydra a long time ago, when are you retiring ?”

“A friend called in a favor, but after that I’m flying to a secret location that I won’t disclose.”

“Good call,” he smirks. “I hope you don’t get too tangled up with Malick and the rest. Hydra is about to go down for good.”

“Nice. Oh, you might wanna avoid the street before the hotel entry, they’re sending more men.”

“Thanks.”

“Well, it was a pleasure as always, Ward. Feel free not to contact me ever again, I’m taking my leave.”

Linda gives him a mock-salute, and then she turns on her heels. He doesn’t watch her go in favor of tugging the kid up without a care for his loud protestations, then he sets off again.

He arrives at the car with two agents chasing him, and it wouldn’t be that big of a problem if Von Strucker would just _stop doing shit_ like trying to run in zig zag or flee or use Ward as a shield.

Skye spots him before he spots her, and she gets out of the car at the same time one of the men descends on him.

Skye extends her hand, quakes the guy right in the chest, sending him flying backwards, and it’s all made abruptly clear all of a sudden ( the bruises and the guilt and the shutting herself down). After using her abilities to knock the last Hydra guy,she glances his way. He pretends not to notice. She’s waiting for a reaction, for fear or awe, and he gives none to her.

Grant has nothing to give her anymore.

Von Strucker doesn’t stop struggling and mumbling under his gag the entire time, not even when he’s trying to push his sorry ass in the car.

Grant is ready to punch him in the face, but Skye beats him to it with a quick wave of power on the head, effectively knocking him out. Her powers come in handy, at least.

He nods in thanks, handling the body in the trunk, encountering some troubles to fold his legs. Skye gives him a look when he brings the hood down, but he just shrugs.

“He’s under. For now, anyway. I don’t want to deal with his babbling when he wakes up.”

All the weapons are neatly ordered on backseat, another reason to put the kid in the trunk, so Grant lets Skye behind the wheel.

“You good ?” Skye asks when he finally settles in the passenger seat, like she’s still waiting for him to freak out and bail.

Well, tough luck. He has seen far worse than some tremors.

“Yeah.”

He guesses not all princesses get a happy ending. Some get blood. Some get broken promises. Some get gunpowder engraved in their fingertips and powers that destroy them from the inside. She gets all of it, plus the defiance and hatred churning at her stomach and that he can see dancing so obviously in her eyes.

When they get to the Playground, Hunter takes Von Strucker to an interrogation room and Kara walks to the lab while the others get together in Coulson’s office for their report.

Grant is a little on edge, awaiting Kara’s surgery and finally getting out of here. Skye stays silent during the whole time he sums up what happened, detailing what Linda told him as well (except he’s not stupid, he says he interrogated one of the agents, not that an ex-coworker did him a favor), only chiming in to relate her part of the story. He’s actually satisfied: their mission is a success, Kara will get her face back and the whole thing didn’t last more than three days.

“We’ll get started on Agent Palamas’ surgery right away,” Simmons announces, and such a weight lifts off his shoulders he can’t restrain his smile.

“Not yet, Simmons.”

Silence falls in the room, all eyes turning on Coulson (except May; never May).

“Not.. yet ?” The biochemist draws out while Grant surges to his feet.

“Not until Malick is in our custody.”

And it’s clear, all of a sudden, what the long-term plan was, what he will have him do.

“You’re still blackmailing us ? So what, so we go and get killed…”

“Oh, no. Agent 33 will stay at Shield while you go and either get us Malick, or execute him.”

“AC-“ Skye begins, standing up.

“We kept our promise,” he yells, pointing a finger at Coulson, whose face is unfazed as always. “We brought Von Strucker, alive, now you keep your promise !”

“I have no use of Von Strucker if he can’t get us to Malick, and I have no use of you if you don’t take Malick off the board.”

The fury in his veins mixed with indignation only increases at Coulson’s next words:

“Agent 33 will stay here and her surgery will depend on the success of _your_ mission. I would get moving if I were you, Ward. Who knows, maybe May will tear her face off to avoid having a doppelgänger around here.”

Grant storms off.

When Skye enters the interrogation room, he’s been behind the observation mirror for two hours to avoid seeing anyone, in case the urge to punch someone in the face became too overwhelming. He hasn’t found it in himself to get to Kara, to watch the disappointment on her face and the pure outrage at Shield’s behavior.

It drives him crazy with both anger and guilt, because Coulson would probably not blackmail them like that it it weren’t for Grant.

He doesn’t want to see Kara’s chance at getting her real life back snatched away from her because of him. Of course, he’ll get Malick.

He just hopes once that’s done, he won’t find two more bullets in his side.

For now, Skye lets herself fall in the chair across from Von Strcuker, crossing her legs and looking at the kid without an ounce of emotion.

Grant looks at her nonchalant posture and the way she leans back in her seat : it’s a little too forced, too obviously detached to any expert’s eye. It works perfectly with Von Strucker though.

“I’m not betraying Malick and... and I have rights ! You can’t just arrest me like that, I…”

“Oh, you’re not under any kind of arrest. You can leave anytime, we’ll drop you off.”

“Wait ? Really ?”

“I mean,” she shrugs, “We don’t have any use of you if you don’t give us Malick’s location. I’m sure your Hydra buddies will be pleased to see you again, with the bounty on your head and all.”

“What ? Wait, wait, what ?”

“Oh, didn’t you realize ? The Hydra agents that came after you were charged with cutting your head off. I’d have gone for a simple bullet, but the other heads of Hydra apparently need proof you’re dead, badly.”

The man has gone ashen, and Grant almost-almost- feels bad for him.

“Malick would never…”

“He gave up your location against weapons, or power, it’s anyone’s guess really. He just wanted to secure his position within the organization itself. You… Well, you are useless to him now that your daddy died. Your death, on the other hand, is extremely valuable. So,” she says, leaning forward, and handing him a little block of paper and a pen, “if you wanna go out there and try to survive with Hydra on your heels, you’re welcomed to try. I mean, let’s be honest, you probably won’t last long, but…”

“Wait, ok. Ok.”

“Ok what ?”

“I’ll… I’ll give you the location, but… But you need to keep me safe, you…”

“Deal. Malick’s location, now.”

“I… I…”

“We are kind of in a rush, Werner. Address, now.”

The young man nods, picking up the pen with shaking fingers and scribbling down something on the block of paper.

Skye snaps it out of his hand, exits the room without a glance back and enters the other side of the mirror.

She’s reading the address, so she doesn’t notice him until she looks up.

“Oh.”

Obviously startled, she still steps into the room, sits behind a computer and starts to tap.

“I didn’t know you were here.”

“Kind of the point,” he snorts.

“Palamas was looking for you.”

His shoulders sag, eyes still intent on the looking glass.

“I doubt she’ll want to see me after Coulson tells her we still have to kill the most powerful and secured head of Hydra.”

She stays silent for the time it takes to gather the info she wants (probably blue prints and a plan of the property) and then she gets up but doesn’t leave immediately, instead she turns to face him.

He looks at her.

“Ward, for what it’s worth, I’m... I’m sorry, I didn’t know Coulson was gonna do that,” she says, fidgeting on her feet. “And... and I talked with Simmons, she’s already started the plans for the surgery, and Fitz is already disconnecting... whatever it is. So. No matter what happens, Pa…Kara is gonna have her face back when we finish this.”

His astonishment translates itself through obtuse silent and his staring at her for a full minute, trying to comprehend the implications of what she did.

She shifts her weight on each foot, before nodding to herself when he still doesn’t respond and turning on her heels.

Still without a sound, dumbstruck, he follows her.

They’re on a mission, after all.

They get sent into the field with Hunter, Morse, May, Davis, Piper, Mackenzie and a woman named Rodriguez who is a literal speedster, which is kind of the best thing to happen to him in the middle of this shit. He spends all their preparation time asking her questions despite her amused looks, and she answers all of them. So, that’s really cool.

What is less cool, however, is him infiltrating a high-ranked Hydra operative.

But they manage it.

With two Inhumans in the group and so many special agents, it’s not even as difficult as he thought it would be. Skye is efficient on the field, although he catches her once or twice losing control of her powers, and they get to Malick’s study in record time.

“I never thought Garrett’s lap dog would be the one to get to me,” he announces, unfazed by their arrival and their dismissing of the guards so quickly.

“Should’ve kept a more careful eye on your subalterns.”

The old man hums, walking around his desk.

“You can kill me, Ward, but Hydra is never going to die. It goes far beyond me, it…”

“Hydra’s time is over. Any last words ?”

“Grant,” Skye whispers on his left.

“Garrett should’ve killed you in that goddamn forest 15 ye…”

The bullet stops his rant at the moment Skye shouts.

He shoots twice more, just to be sure.

“What the _fuck_ Ward ?”

“Order of the boss,” he spits.

“Oh, and is that Coulson or do you have another agenda _again_ ?”

“Screw you, Skye !” He snaps, and that’s the first time she’s gotten that much emotion from him. “Why do you think Coulson sent me in the field ? Why do you think he needed me, and not any of you ?”

“Not to execute Malick !”

“Really ? Then why the fuck wasn’t May charged with going in ? Why did I have to come with _you_ ?”

“I don’t… I…”

“It’s done,” he says, all fight suddenly gone. “It’s done, Skye. Hydra is destroyed. You should be glad.”

“I am, but you didn’t have to… you shouldn’t have to.”

He glances at her face painted with righteous indignation, but for once he doesn’t know if it’s against him or for him. It’s so astonishing he decides not to linger on it.

“Come on, let’s go.”

It doesn’t really feel like they managed to bring down a terrorist organization.

It just feels like he’s been played.

Their return is met with applause from all the agents on site.

Mackenzie, held up by Rodriguez, goes straight to the infirmary to get a bullet dug out of his leg while May leaves to deliver the news to Coulson. For some unknown reason, Skye keeps close to him, even when Fitz welcomes them with:

“The surgery went really well.”

As soon as this is said, they rush towards the medical bay, Fitz describing the surgery and complications while Grant listens intently and Skye follows without a word.

“She’ll have a scar, still, but she has her face back and the Photostatic Veil is thrown into the trash. I mean, not the literal trash, because it’s far too expensive, but like, metaphorically…”

Simmons is in the room talking to Kara when they arrive, a big smile on her face.

His best friend turns around, anticipation rolling off her body in waves, and he is introduced for the first time to Kara Palamas’ true features.

“What do you say ?”

For the first time in his life, Grant beams with happiness.

He tries to poke her in the cheek where there’s no remains of her scar, but she swats his hand away with a “tsk”, and then he pretends to mule it over, but the smile is splitting his cheeks and soon she’s smiling as well, and he recognizes it because he _knows_ it, no matter her now brown skin and her dark eyes and longer nose and plumper lips and arched eyebrows. He _knows_ her.

“You could use some make up.”

“Fuck you Douglas,” she retorts with a punch to his arm, but she’s chuckling.

“You look like you.”

He pretends not to notice the tears in her eyes when she turns towards FitzSimmons and says solemnly:

“Thank you.”

“Bah, it was simply an issue with the wires fuzed into the veil, no big deal, really.”

“Well you’re not the one who had to operate on a skin surface without…”

“Just,” Kara interrupts. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Simmons says with a grin.

When he turns around, Skye is still there, looking at Kara and seeming uncertain. 

“Thanks,” he whispers to her, a little too late.

But she smiles faintly, a shadow he doesn’t want to decrypt falling over her gaze.

“It was the right thing to do. She deserves this.”

“Yeah,” he smiles. “She does.”

And then Coulson is stepping inside the lab with May in tow, and the temperature drops considerably.

“Ah, agent 33. I see the intervention worked.”

“Yes. I’m grateful to both Fitz and Simmons, they did an amazing work. Now that you have Malick, we’ll take our leave.”

“You should stay at Shield. Find your place again, you earned it.”

“Earned it ?”

“Yes. You were an extremely valuable agent, and we’d be glad to have you back.”

“Valuable ? You let me be brainwashed,” she hisses, stepping right in his face, "tortured, you fought me instead of trying to help me when you’ve had so much opportunities, you capture me and hold me at gunpoint and now you want me back ? Go fuck yourself."

“You don’t understand, Agent 33, Ward is…”

“It’s Kara, and I’m no longer an agent. Ward is my partner, and more than you could ever be. Now,” she spits, “we’re leaving and you won’t come bother us again, because next time I see you I’ll put a bullet in your head myself.”

She turns on her heels and really, who is he to contradict her ?

No one tries to stop them, although literally everyone they pass stare at them, some with hatred, some with awe, but Kara does not pay attention to anyone, speeding through the corridors like she owns the place. They don’t meet any resistance on the way to the car. He supposes the truth bombs she dropped stunned the agents long enough for them not to question their departure.

“Are you sure you want to leave that chance behind ?” He asks her once she’s behind the wheel and they’re leaving the base.

“I don’t want to work for them anymore. They fucking suck.”

“How am I…”

She interrupts him with a flick of her wrist and a frown.

“You never lied to yourself about who you were. Coulson, Whitehall, Garrett, they’re all the same. They think they’re better than they really are and will find any justification for their cause and their actions.”

He tries not to feel relieved.

He fails miserably.

Going back to the house feels strangely like coming home, which baffles Ward to no end. He’s been running all over the world his whole life, so having something akin to a real house, with people he cares about a phone call away, is odd to say the least.

He knows Kara won’t stay long, just the time to find what she wants to do, and then she’ll be traveling around the world and partying between two missions. She still has to visit her mother, and either get rid of her apartment in Tijuana or renew the lease. In any case, a week after the events, when the house is finally resembling a real house with furniture and decorative objects and pictures Kara forced him to take plastered on the walls, she surges into his room.

She’s a goddamn whirlwind, interrupting his very precious sleep to open the curtains, shake him awake with all her delicacy, and announce while throwing a shirt at his face.

“Get up ! You’re gonna need company once my delightful self is gone.”

He catches the shirt, blinking slowly.

“Delightful ? You sure about that ?”

“Shut up, I’m a ray of sunshine. I don’t want you to stay on your own and wallow in your loneliness. Come on, let’s get you a dog !”

And so there he is, twenty minutes later, standing awkwardly in the veterinarian clinic/shelter of the town with uncertainty creeping up on him.

“Kara-“ he says for the third time, because it doesn’t seem like a good idea, Buddy still a painful memory, but like the two previous times his friend blatantly ignores him and smiles at the odd woman that works here, requesting in perfect French:

“Hi ! Could we see the dogs to adopt, please ?”

And he knows he’s done for, because there are so many little balls of fur jumping around and yipping happily when he walks past them, and they’re all so cute and deserve a good home, and there is absolutely no way in hell he walks out of here without at least one of them.

Kara strolls between the kennels, entirely ignoring the puppies because those are cute and will find a family without a doubt. He knows she’s looking for the same thing he is; the ones no one will take because they’re too old, too broken, hopeless.

After five minutes, he notices the black and brown Rottweiler curled in his cage with ears hanging low and sad eyes. It stands out among the joyful yapping of the puppies, among the little dogs jumping on the fences to see Kara and him. It seems ready to die here.

He knows the feeling too well, and his heart breaks a little.

Grant crouches,waits for the dog to come suspiciously sniff his stretched hand through the fence, and then it’s licking his fingers, whole body shaking with restless excitation, and Grant is in love.

“How long has this one been here ?” He asks, bewildered by the affection the big dog is showing him.

The woman lifts a multicolored eyebrow and answers a little sadly.

“Three years. He’s a Rottweiler, so people tend not to stop in front of his cage most of the time. There are a lot of stigmas about…”

“Can I take him ?”

Kara swaps him on the back of the head, but there is no changing his mind, and he signs the adoption papers before stuffing as many dog stuff as he can in Kara’s arms. The woman informs him he can chose a name, as the dog (who is jumping around with joy, making Grant’s heart melt) is still young and they never really found a name to settle on.

“When I said let’s get you a dog,” she begins once they’re outside, the happy Rottweiler on a leash, “I meant a Coker or a Spaniel, something little and soothing, not a muscled beast of Hell.”

“Rottweiler are actually extremely caring dogs, and they’re loyal. Look at his face, he’s adorable.”

She frowns, but can’t contain the little smile that erupts when the dog jumps around his legs.

“Besides, I can train him. Uh, buddy, you’re gonna come on missions with me ?”

The dog wiggles its tail, looking up at him before bouncing again, pulling Grant forward sharply with a bark and making Kara snort.

“Yeah, you’re gonna do just fine. He’s your spitting image.”

“We need a name,” he realizes once they’re at the car, and Kara yells, head buried in the hood to put away all the things he bought.

“Don’t look at me, it’s your dog.”

It feels important, too important for a reason, and Grant thinks about it the entire ride home, one arm stretched behind him to scratch the dog’s ears, sat on the backseat.

“I don’t know,” his friend says once they’re inside the house and the dog is exploring every corner of his new home. “Give him a name that means something to you, I guess.”

He thinks about it, really does, and then he settles on:

“Lucky.”

She snorts.

“So deep and insightful. Grant, your originality knocks me out. Seriously, you can’t do better ?”

He shrugs, scratching the dog’s ears when he passes by.

“I think we’re both pretty lucky, after all.”

“You’re a sad sack of shit, you know that, right ?”

“Stop, you’re going to make me emotional.”

She punches his arm, but ruffles his hair when she goes in the kitchen to take a soda.

The morning after, Kara leaves to roam the earth and be the woman she was always meant to be, dismantling smuggling rings furnishing Hezbollah and rescuing victims of human trafficking in Thailand. She loves it.

On his side of the world, it is made clear to Grant that Lucky has been trained at least a little before coming into his care. He is extremely well-behaved, gets things quickly, so Grant doesn’t waste any time and begins the training right away. From shaking paws and playing dead, he teaches him to sneak up on someone, to crawl on the floor and spot people many feet away, to discern the scent of a stranger and bark when needed to.

Grant trains him to be a Scout Dog, but not only. He himself has been shaped to be a weapon, and he’d never reduce hid dog to his usefulness.

Lucky is always craving contact, and Grant is happy to provide him with pats on the head and play with him and basically be a good owner, which is a big responsibility and a gift all at once. He thinks he’s doing pretty good, honestly.

He’s doing better.


	2. Let Us Do Better

When she is eight, a nun at the orphanage calls her a tortured soul.

Mary Sue Potts smiles and nods, although she doesn’t know what it means, but she doesn’t ask the answers to things she doesn’t know anymore. She learned a long time ago that knowledge is power and she’ll be damned if she gives up what little left to it she has.

She didn’t understand, then, what the sister saw in her to call her that. She just supposed everyone felt what she did, that everyone was always longing and empty and too full at the same time, that everyone felt like turning their skins over but didn’t because society. She didn’t understand then.

She does now.

In Tijuana, Ward just strolls in, like nothing has changed since they played battleship, like nothing has been broken and shattered beyond repair.

But it has, and far too much for her not to break a littleat the sight of him, memories of scars and bloody lips and dirty fingers and hovering hands hitting her straight in the chest. His whisky eyes stop on her for just a second, but it’s enough to make something rise within her, a twisted sense of satisfaction screaming “ _are you scared, now ? Now that I shot you four times, have you figured out I never needed you, I didn’t want your protection, even less your dreadful promises ? I can kill you with a flick of my wrist. You_ should _be scared._ ”

Then his eyes move past her, find 33 over her shoulder and the gun pointed at her chest, and she loses his entire focus.

“Are you ok ?”

He acts like she isn’t here, and that if he notices her, she doesn’t matter. But she knows him -at least she knows his working techniques- and she’s certain if she makes a gesture just a bit too abrupt, he’ll be ready to react at a moment’s notice.

She’d like to see him try, just so he could realize she’s more powerful than he could ever have made her.

She tunes Coulson out in favor of studying both enemies.

Seeing May’s face on someone else’s makes her uneasy, and honestly a little repelled. The scar doesn’t help; from the hairline to the neck, the left side of her face is red and raw.

She resists the urge to scratch the itch in her cheek.

On her side, Ward is still the same (she would see the difference if she acknowledged he changed, but she refuses to admit such a thing, and so she decides he looks the same and is the same).

He just has a beard, now, and his hair, a little longer, hide the place where she knows there is a scar.

There are so many hidden scars.

She shakes her head.

It doesn’t matter now. It’s just unsettling, is all it is, to see him so close to Agent 33, to see him worry, to see his hand come up to her shoulder not to manipulate but to comfort.

How can a traitor so cruel, so bad, ever care about someone so much ?

She never imagined hands this bloody, soaked with scarlet, could touch someone so gently, even as she lived it herself, once.

Skye would rather ignore that time altogether. That time where she wasn’t able to distinguish the safety from the magazine on a gun and where she trusted him wholeheartedly.

What a mistake that turned out to be.

She won’t be fooled once more.

(And it doesn’t mean anything, the thing clenching in her chest when he refuses to look at her, when he protects Kara like he did her, it doesn’t mean a thing.)

She studies them, the entire time she’s assigned to their supervision. She studies the way Kara seems to return the affection, the way they joke around and seem oddly nonchalant while picking up guns and grenades. She doesn’t like what she sees.

Because it’s too… normal. Casual.

And she doesn’t like to think about the fact -possibility- that Ward is a normal human being with emotions, because it would mean a lot of things she is not ready to face.

As soon as Coulson is done listing the requirements of their stay here, she bolts right to the intelligence management center to dig into Von Strucker’s life and last travels. As Coulson warned her a bit late of their mission, she hasn’t really had the time to gather much information on his whereabouts. She knows he’s in Portugal, probably in Lisbon but she still doesn’t have the certainty he stayed in the city, as she doesn’t know where he currently is.

So she needs to find a detailed address before the briefing with Coulson.

Letting the computers do their thing and try to find him through the local camera network (among others), she lays back in her chair and, after a seance of hesitation, she runs a search on Gideon Malick.

He’s one scary dude.

When she finally has something, she goes to Coulson, ready to announce the good news, but he doesn’t leave her time to talk, asking her right away to get Ward.

Awesome.

Stepping inside the lab right in the middle of a stand-off between Simmons and Ward feels like she’s a referee stepping into the ring.

“Coulson wants to do a briefing with everyone.”

He nods before turning towards Simmons again and saying something she never thought she would hear in Ward’s mouth.

“Look, I know you hate me, but… But Kara has nothing to do with what happened between us, and she needs that mask gone. Don’t make her pay for my mistakes.”

It’s… Not what she expected from Grant Ward, the one who, according to Shield, blamed everyone else for his actions, for his mistakes. It’s… She doesn’t like it, she doesn’t like the fact that he’s trying to protect Palamas, because it would be a sign of growth, and… Yikes.

When he turns away from Simmons, she waits for him to exit the room.

He doesn’t.

He just stares.

“You can go first,” he draws out.

“What ?” She asks, frowning, because Grant Ward isn’t the indecisive kind of guy.

He jerks his head towards the hallway, and it takes around eight seconds for her to catch his drift.

She grits her teeth until it hurts, before spitting in his face.

“I’m not gonna shoot you.”

Who does he think she is, a Hydra agent ? Someone like him, going around and shooting people for no reason ? She shot him because she had to, because it was a life or death situation and she couldn’t afford to trust him in the field, couldn’t afford his empty promises to get her out and leave everyone else behind.

“And I’m not gonna make the same mistake twice.”

She would be lying if she said she hasn’t cried herself to sleep thinking about Ward, about him turning on them, and about the way he desperately tried to shield her from the worst parts of himself for so long.

Oh yes, she has cried. A lot. But anger has always come to her easier than sadness, and so she turned her hatred towards him and faulted him for all of it. 

She has never cried about shooting him, not once.

She hasn’t even given it a lot of thought, she figures out. She didn’t even know if he was dead or alive, and she had more important matters at hand. But maybe, just maybe… Shooting him in the back as he tried to get her out of there was… Was wrong. Was something he would do, probably did, to Victoria Hand.

That’s when she realizes: Ward may be the villain in Coulon’s story, but she’s the villain to his.

The realization isn’t pleasant so she does what she did when the Nun called her a tortured soul; she pretends she isn’t affected and stomps off.

But she’s still angry, of course she is, because why does he have the right to criticize her, to throw all of it in her face, to put all the blame on _her_ ? He killed people, good people, and he doesn’t have any right to just… To just storm in and make her doubt or… Whatever. She’s better than this.

“We don’t go around shooting people for fun, at Shield.”

“Yeah ? You had me convinced in Tijuana.”

That’s a low blow. He knows how this works, he _knows_ , he did worse. The difference is that Coulson is not Garrett and he would have never shot an innocent woman.

“Coulson wouldn’t have shot her.”

“Really. Even if we had refused his offer ?”

Skye doesn’t answer.

Not because he’s right, of course not, but because… Because he doesn’t deserve an answer from her, he doesn’t deserve anything from her and she has already given him far too much.

“Does it help you sleep ?”

They leave for Lisbon tomorrow morning, and for some reason she couldn’t sleep. She knows Hunter likes to stay up late before a mission, and tonight there is a match he’s been talking about for a week, so she joined him in the break-kitchen-living room to watch tv and not talk. Which is why she’s surprised he spoke.

“What ?” She asks, a frown on her face.

“Telling yourself you don’t care.”

“I don’t.”

Hunter snorts, taking a gulp of his beer before saying with a smirk:

“Yeah, that’s what I used to tell myself as well, when Bobbi and I were broken up.”

“Which time ?” She snickers, and he throws a potato chip at her.

Unfortunately, it does not throw him off his trail of thought.

“It hurt so bad because it matters. You can’t ignore that.”

“It mattered,” she corrects him.

“I thought you weren’t the type to give up on people.”

“Shut up, Hunter. You don’t know what he did.”

“Oh, I do,” he snarks. “In excruciating, painful long details. Or need I remind you the rants you make when you’re drunk ?”

“Fuck you.”

“You know what ? You’re right, I don’t really know what happened between you two and why that happened. Bobbi might.”

“What ?”

“She did some pretty awful stuff, you know. So did I. We’ve been agents far longer than you, and you were an hacktivist first. You had to change and shift. We…Some of us were built this way, and we got thrown into it, voluntarily or not, far earlier than you. So, kiddo,” he mocks and she swats him, “you might wanna make yourself think you don’t care, but as soon as an excuse will come up, you’ll jump on it.”

The wound is still icy in her heart, so Skye gives him a look.

“Doubtful.”

“Whatever you say. Now that my good deed of the day is done, let’s watch the match in silence.”

“Yeah, maybe you’ll drown in your beer."

“Doubtful,” he mocks.

They get paired up together because of course they do. Coulson must believe that of all the team members, she’s the one Ward would have the hardest time betraying (she’s not so sure about that).

Being left alone with Ward was bound to cause some ripples. He is… he has been too normal during this period of time, since they agreed to work together. She expected a lot of things from Ward, yet his behavior defies all of her expectations. They shoot provocations back and forth and he manages to rile her up, which annoys her even more than the goddamn heat.

Then he turns around, picks up the Remington, and she kind of loses her train of thoughts.

Her gaze strays on his arms, the way he handles the rifle; she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to reach that kind of ease with guns and missions in the field.

That’s when she sees the scars. Pink and painful-looking, from the very base of the wrist to the inside of the elbow (she wonders how he survived it, he was always so effective).

She forgot about them.

Not really forgot, of course, but… voluntarily eluded.

And now she feels kind of sick. She can’t imagine hurting herself like that, can’t imagine the kind of utter despair he must have felt down there to carefully fold a piece of paper and just… slit his forearms. Even now, with her parents gone and powers bursting out of her in bruises and broken bones, she doesn’t want to hurt herself, wants to avoid it desperately.

Maybe she should’ve done something.

No, she rebukes, of course not. Far too many of Ward’s mistakes were on her, but not these scars. And anyway he seems to be, and that’s the hell of it, _happy._ Not currently, as he’s stuck with her just as she’s stuck with him, but overall. 

There is so much pain in her chest nowadays, it’s unbearable.

She doesn’t see why Grant Ward of all people should be granted getting rid of his.

It’s unbelievably unfair, and makes her hurt even more, makes something dark fester at the sight of his smile, at the memory of Kara’s hand gripping his wrist and telling him to watch his back.

It’s not fair, that she found her family just to lose it again, but that he found a partner along the way.

It’s not fair, she repeats that night when she’s tasked with surveillance, tears she desperately tries to ignore burning her eyes (she can’t sleep that night, too preoccupied by the shadows spreading on the sheets and crawling up her mind, and she wonders if that’s what it felt like in his dark cell).

The knowledge that he isn’t comfortable with her covering him by sniper doesn’t bother her as much as it should. She busies herself cleaning their hotel room, bagging all the weapons she won’t use, and when she attempts to clean the ones they will use, he tells her he already did it.

(And yeah he did, long fingers expertly removing the magazine, brushing the barrel, lining up the bullets on the table, and she was distracted for much more time than she cares to admit).

And now that he’s gone in the hotel after Von Strucker and she’s still in their room watching everything unfold, she gets fidgety. She wants to be on the field, honestly. She doesn’t like watching from a distance, unable to really do anything if stuff goes wrong.

It’s so annoying, because he’s extremely attractive like that, fingers clutched on his raised gun, eyes scanning the room, body moving smoothly despite his bullet proof vest with an ease gained through years of training and experience.

She huffs, tightens her hold on the Remington.

Somehow, it’s easier to let herself admire his stance and the way he moves when she’s at a distance. Maybe it gives her the illusion of psychological distance between them as well.

That has been a problem before.

Look at this motherfucker.

Being all professional and handsome and logical and protective of Palamas and even nice to her with his damn spinach ravioli and his giving up the bed for her and making her question things.

Mother.

Fucker.

He gets out of the hotel without too much fuss, and as soon as he’s out of sight she grabs the bags and goes to the car before driving to the rendezvous point.

He arrives late. And chased.

And still pretty despite the blood on his face and his murderous expression.

Mother. Fucker.

She uses her powers and immediately turns towards him, awaiting the same reaction as all the others (fear, anxiety, confusion, anything). He just stuffs Von Strucker in the trunk once she knocked him out, and doesn’t even speak about it until she asks:

“You’re not scared of me ?”

He snorts, and he should be thankful for her driving, otherwise she would’ve punched him.

“Scared of you ? Why the hell would I be scared of you ?”

“Because. I can kill you in a second.”

“So could I. Just because you got superpowers doesn’t mean you’re invincible all of a sudden.”

“I’m stronger than you now.”

“Well it took you goddamn weeks to find the difference between the magazine release and the safety, excuse me for not trembling at the sight of you.”

It’s…

Unexpected.

When she glances at his face, he has a little smirk on his face, like he’s perfectly at ease and the revelation of her mutation doesn’t scare him in the least. Something a little too warm wraps around her ribs.

Mother.

Fucker.

Coulson’s announcement comes as an unwelcome surprise, and it’s well against her will that she completely understands why Ward storms off.

It bugs her, all this withheld information, all the secrecy. They already discovered Bobbi and Mack both worked for Gonzales as double agents. She doesn’t like not knowing things, especially things that could come bite them in the ass later. So she doesn’t appreciate _at all_ being kept in the dark about the delay of Kara’s surgery and the changing of their plan without a really good reason.

It’s not... what Coulson did, it’s not something Shield would do, it’s something Ward would do, Hydra.

It’s.. it’s not right.

There is something uncomfortable growing within her at this thought, so she tries to be faithful to herself and goes see Fitz and Simmons. Strangely enough, they agree with her without a second of doubt (although Simmons is annoyed at the idea that Skye has to go on another mission with Ward), and even get angry. Apparently they like Agent 33, and think she deserves her face back. Without disagreeing with them, Skye still is uneasy at the thought that this woman is Ward’s partner, seems to be loyal entirely to him and no one else.

It’s not exactly a good sign. But they’re right, and she was right to come see them. No one deserves to have their identity stripped away, to be used and abused until there is nothing left to take.

Maybe that’s why Ward took Palamas under his wing.

Because they were eerily identical.

Getting the information out of Von Strucker is easy.

Running into Ward in the observation room, standing in front of the mirror, is less easy.

Completely unprepared for him right now, she decides to turn towards the mission at hand and search the blueprints and plans for the address Von Strucker gave her.

“Palamas was looking for you.”

She sees his shoulders sag even as his eyes don’t leave the mirror,

“I doubt she’ll want to see me after Coulson tells her we still have to kill the most powerful and secured head of Hydra.”

Her heart shrinks a little at the defection in his voice, at the way he thinks this is his fault.

For once, she can acknowledge that it is not, by any means, his fault.

Once she gets to her feet, she can’t exactly leave him there seething on his own.

He is angry, and he is right to be, so she doesn’t know what else to say except what will for sure appease him some.

“Ward, for what it’s worth, I’m... I’m sorry, I didn’t know Coulson was gonna do that,” she says, fidgeting on her feet even as she wishes herself to be more stoic. “And... and I talked with Simmons, she’s already started the plans for the surgery, and Fitz is already disconnecting... whatever it is. So. No matter what happens, Pa…Kara is gonna have her face back when we finish this.”

His expression is unreadable. She lets her eyes trail on the side of his face, to his beard -it really suits him- and his lips and that’s when she snaps them up. Still without an answer, she nods to herself to appear at least a bit decisive despite the anxiety in her guts and she turns on her heels.

They’re going to destroy Hydra.

She feels bad, goddamn, she feels bad.

They left a trail of unconscious or dead bodies in their wake, Malick lays dead at their feet, Ward’s gun still trained on him, and yet she feels bad for _him_.

He is right, she should be glad.

There is not time to wonder why the fuck she feels that way, because then shots echo and he grabs her hand, dragging her with him so they can leave this godforsaken place and go back to base.

They barely make it in time to the Jet, and it’s panting and heaving and sweating that they arrive.

They just brought Hydra down.

They destroyed the world’s worst terrorist organization, and yet there are shadows in his eyes and a tension in his neck and a pull to his lips.

Mack’s leg is bleeding even as Elena ties a tourniquet around it, and Skye decides to focus on that when she takes Grant’s hand in hers, as to not see the expression on his face at her gesture.

He squeezes back.

She doesn’t know why she follows Fitz and Ward to the medical room, doesn’t know why she stays when Palamas turns around and smiles.

The change is drastic, and incredible. The only reminder of the Photostatic Veil is the scar still running on her left cheek, fading slightly above the nose. Gone is May’s pale complexion, giving way to tan skin and brown hair falling around her reddish face elegantly, even after the surgery (she’s kind of jealous of that).

Grant looks at Kara’s puffy face with so much fondness Skye aches.

Not able to put a name on that feeling, she explains it by the fact that she’s never seen Ward care so much about someone (he cared about her, but she doesn’t want to deal with that thought, especially when she can still feel his bloody fingers in hers).

After he’s done teasing his… partner, he turns towards her.

“Thank you,” he says.

Her heart leaps to her throat.

“You’re welcome. She deserves this.”

After the disaster that was Coulson’s job offer to Palamas, Skye goes to Bobbi, like Hunter suggested -not that she’ll ever admit that he had a point- and asks her point blank the difference between an undercover mission at Hydra and at Shield.

“Well I mean on paper, it’s exactly the same thing,” Bobbi says. “We all fight for what we believe in, isn’t that kind of the point ? The difference is that Shield fights for the good of the world, of the people, while Hydra endangers their safety and their freedom.”

“Was it hard ? Being undercover at Hydra ?”

Bobbi sighs, passing a hand in her hair. She glances at her, searching for accusation or wariness, but finds none. Skye doesn’t exactly hold her treason against her (maybe she should; she sure did for Ward, and his was provoked out of loyalty for a person).

“Yes and no. I’m used to it. But it never gets easy because no matter where you are, there are people there that are just normal people, you know ? You get friendly, you bond, you have a beer and you joke around. And then two days later you get the order to shoot them in the head because they need to die in order for us to win.”

“That’s awful.”

“Every victory, every fight has a price. I’m happy to pay it if it means ordinary people are safe.”

Skye bites her tongue to avoid pointing out that she isn’t really the one paying the price, but the dead people are. Kara Palamas’ face comes to mind and she shakes her head.

It doesn’t matter anyway. They’re gone.

“I could never do that to someone.”

“And that’s ok, Skye,” she answers, going for reassurance when it’s absolutely not what Skye meant. “It’s not something that comes easily. You don’t have to be ashamed of having feelings and caring too much.”

She is ashamed because it’s only at this moment that she figures out she cared too little for a long time.

“Why am I not happy ?”

The question hangs in the air.

From where she’s laying on the bed, legs up pressed against the headboard, she hears Fitz’s chair roll to the side of the mattress.

“You’re not ?”

Skye huffs. The stains on the ceiling shape a thing that resembles Gimli, from The Lord of the Rings, and yep, she’s going too far to avoid the question now.

“I don’t know.”

“I can’t really help you with that.”

“I mean,” she begins, rolling over on her stomach to lean her chin on her palms and stare at him, “you’re happy. Simmons is happy. Hunter and Bobbi are happy. Mack and Elena seem happy. And May…”

“May is as expressive as ever.”

“Yeah, I think she and Coulson are banging.”

“Gross.”

“What I mean is… It’s not even about couples, you know ? I don’t… I don’t need someone,” she emphasizes. “I don’t even want someone.”

“What do you want ?”

“I don’t know, that’s the point,” she sighs. “I have a good job, I finally made agent on the field, I have life and death friends, I…”

“Maybe that’s the problem. You’re kind of focusing on the life and death situation, you see ? I mean, our job obliges, but….you might just be tired of the precariousness of the situation. Maybe you like your life but you just don’t have the time to enjoy it.”

“I’m not sure that’s it, honestly. I’m… I’m content, you know ? I’m just not happy.”

Something is burning inside, in a different way than her powers are. It hurts a bit, and she knows it means something but she doesn’t know what and she can’t reach the answer.

“I guess… I guess you need to figure out what makes you happy, instead of what _should_.”

She mulls it over, before smiling at him.

“You’re kind of a genius, you know that ?”

“Well, I do have two PHDs, if it means anything.”

“It means you’re a nerd.”

“Well you’re a geek, so which one is worst really ?”

Oh, he’s got one coming.

She thinks about her job, that night.

And she figures out that if she wasn’t so attached to her family, she would have never made agent, she wouldn’t be on the field, she wouldn’t even be at Shield. The reason she continued her training after… after Ward was to stick it up to him -she knows herself enough to admit it- and to earn her place here.

That’s it.

It’s not like she enjoys chasing people around and encountering near-death experiences every two days and having her friends captured by Russian diplomats or endangered by genetically modified beings. But now that Fitz is better and Simmons is back and they’ve destroyed Hydra for good…

Well.

Questions are arising.

It’s not exactly pleasant, especially when she catches herself thinking about Ward and Kara and the way they both somehow thrived after their time at Hydra’s hands (she doesn’t want to think about how many weeks he needed to walk again, about how many stitches he has, about the scars that are probably marking his skin).

Why could they have something that she can’t ?

Skye gets the hang of her powers more and more, to the point where she doesn’t need the protections anymore. They don’t scare her, and she sees them for what they are: more than a weapon to be used, a part of her. A part she abuses of when Bobbi and she go to a paintball game and she wants to win, or when Hunter tries to reach the remote to change the channel and she just keeps quaking it forward until he gives up, or when FitzSimmons ask her to quake a substance whatever to help with their research.

She _enjoys_ them.

It’s kind of crazy.

Coulson still puts her on sniper duty most of the time, which is annoyingly protective. She thinks about Ward frequently now, which is not a change she minds as much as she probably should (once, she wakes up with his name on her lips and stays in denial for weeks, mortified).

But there is, like in all good stories, a turning point.

They spot an Inuman in Ohio by complete accident. He’s not doing anything particular, hasn’t done anything wrong really. He’s getting pastries at the bakery just when FitzSimmons are testing some kind of radar or tracer or whatever, and he pops on their screen.

They follow him home, and Coulson and May go talk to him, putting her on sniper duty again in case he gets violent or represents a threat.

He refuses all their proposals, tells them he’s perfectly fine like that and he doesn’t want his name plastered on a list somewhere, that he won’t undergo medical exams nor accept the tracer to be put under his skin.

They tell her to shoot.

It’s a risky shot, because the Inhuman’s metabolism is unknown, so ICERS are off the table at the risk of being completely useless.

So they tell her to aim for the leg while he turns around to enter his house and reunite with his boyfriend, and they know it’s a very narrow window, they know she maybe has a 65% of missing and hitting a major artery or something.

She has to choose between what seems right and what she’s ordered to do.

She chooses loyalty to Shield.

It’s by complete, utter luck that she hits his shoulder, because he bends down at the moment she presses the trigger (she almost shot him right in the head, and she’s shaking but can’t think about that as Shield drags him to the Quinjet).

She shakes the entire way home. She keeps shaking when she’s sitting on her bed, looking at the wall in front of her and not finding answers on it.

And she finally gets it.

It feels like Ward doomed her, that day, but she knows it’s not that.

He made her a promise - _some day you’ll understand-_ and it appears he simply knew her better then that she knew herself, than she knows herself now.

She _hates_ that he was right.

Skye likes strong words, the ones that stick in your mind and your heart and mean something, make whatever happens in her life hold signification.

She likes to think that what she’s doing now is akin to a renewal of sort, a minor effect of Sonder where she realized that Ward had his own experience of what went down between them.

Not that she absolves him of all blame, far from it.

But… She understands, and for now that’s what matters, she supposes.

Here she is, sand under her feet and the gentle waves rolling on the beach before her eyes.

It shouldn’t mean as much as it does, yet she’s glad.

She inhales the salty air, wind caressing her face in a swift breeze, to find some semblance of courage. She doesn’t know what she’s going to say.

She doesn’t know if he’ll accept to hear whatever she comes up with.

Time flies by, and when she finally feels ready, she sets off and makes her way to his home.

She found the address months ago, around the time he and Kara left the Playground in a whirl of accusations and loud words. Skye didn’t know why she had searched for it at the time. She does now.

The dog tilts its head when she arrives just before the house, assessing her.

It doesn’t move, but it doesn’t bark either, so she takes a chance and steps forward, all the way to the steps of the porch, where she sits.

The view is incredibly beautiful here, it takes her breath away (he probably never wants to stare at four walls again).

The beach stretches almost to his door, the sun bathing in the ocean, just on the edge of the world, and the house itself is a modern and beautiful piece of architecture.

He picked well.

After some time, the dog nudges her arm aside so he can slide his head under it, sniffing her face.

She laughs.

Then she looks up and freezes.

She has to remind herself to breathe, because more than beautiful, he looks good.

As in, twinkle in the eye, weariness lifted off his shoulders, traces of a lingering smile at the corner of his mouth, good. He wears his beard extremely well, and she gets a little dumb at the thought of how it must feel against her skin, how rough yet still attentive he would be. She shakes the thought off.

His right hand is wrapped around the strap of a black duffel bag, and she has no doubt concerning his activities of the day (she might have been following his tracks since he left the Playground, sue her). She wonders, for a second, if he does missions like those because he can’t live without it, because it’s been carved in his DNA by the volitions of John Garrett and Nick Fury.

But he looks content.

That is, until he sees her.

He halts a few feet away.

She stands. 

Anxiety makes her hands tremble a little, so she rubs them on her jean, trying to regain her composure. She doesn’t exactly know why she’s here, but she’s sure it’s something she needs to do.

Despite the apprehension, she wants to do it.

She ought to do it.

*****

He stops dead in his tracks.

Skye is there.

Sitting on the steps of his porch with his dog under her arm, like it’s a thing they do.

Her eyes are already intent on him, lips parted a bit, and her casual attire consisting in blue jeans and a flannel over a tank top makes him think she’s not here on business (unless she suddenly decided to finish the job on personal time and fire one more bullet).

He realizes he still hasn’t moved, and so he forces his legs to get the memo and get on with the program.

She stands up when he’s a few steps away from her, rubbing her hands on her thighs, mouth open in the beginning of an explanation, probably.

Ward debates the idea of turning his back on her before damning it to hell.

“Ward…”

“I need a drink,” he grumbles, moving past her and unlocking his door. Lucky barks once before slipping between his legs and speeding down the hall.

Skye follows him inside. He just knows she’s studying everything, from the pictures Kara sticked on the wall to the few objects of decoration he put here and there, trying to figure out what fit.

He drops the keys on the counter, opens the fridge and picks up two beers.

When he turns around, he cannot help but think that Skye, with her hair capturing the rays of light that come through the big glass-door that gives a view of the ocean, with her pink lips and red cheeks and tan skin, with eyes that beg to find their mirth again, fits in here.

It hurts his heart a little, so he just hands her the bottle and jerks his head towards the living room.

It’s odd, sitting down with Skye facing him and not feeling this urge to get closer, to protect her.

It’s odd, to see her drink and not meet his eye, to see her lips wrapped around the neck of the bottle instead of around teasing remarks or insults. Lucky comes back, lying at his feet with his head on his shoe.

“So ?”

The inquiry makes her take another swig before she sighs, deep and heavy, and fixes her eyes on the ocean outside.

“I don’t know.”

He waits. It’s not easy, as he is torn between distress and anger, but he waits.

She looks at him.

“I guess I… Understand.”

Well. That’s fucking sad.

“You were right. I understand. And I’m… sorry.”

He could make her sweat right now. He could throw her out, he has every right to.

He could yell at her, spill all the things that festered in his mind and soul since the cell, but…

“Ok.”

“Ok ?” She replies, astonishment painted on her face, hands tightening around her bottle.

He notices her leg started jerking up and down.

He shrugs, takes a swig.

“Ok.”

He almost laughs at the look on her face.

Skye spends the afternoon with him.

They talk a little, cautious words and even more cautious gestures, never too sudden and never in a blind spot.

But they talk.

And that’s what matters, Grant thinks. It matters, that Skye chuckles at the way he slices the tomatoes, that he feels comfortable enough after a while to turn his back and let her play with his dog, that she feels comfortable enough to let him gesture around with a kitchen knife in hand.

All in all, they drink and loosen up a little.

And it matters.

Watching her pet his dog and wave awkwardly at him when she leaves, her silhouette disappearing in the dark, Grant thinks that this might be the beginning of something, if they let it be.

Before he knows it, it becomes a _thing_.

Her dropping by unannounced, him finding her laughing at Lucky and the way he chases the ball she’s quaking around with no effort whatsoever.

He even expects her now.

Skye comes by when she feels like it, which is surprisingly a lot (sometimes there is blood on her hands he purposefully ignores, sometimes there are bruises on her face, and sometimes she doesn’t talk, she just sits down and clings to the wine he gives her). The first few times are awkward, but once they drown their discomfort in alcohol and silly games with his dog, their tongues loosen and they confess stuff they weren’t ready to, before, and it’s… it’s good.

Having Skye here is good.

But it’s not everything, far from it.

He works at the veterinary clinic/shelter now, picking up “other” jobs when he wants to, when he feels like the nightmares will hold him down and choke him in his bed, or when energy strikes him like an electric shock. His two coworkers are the eccentric elderly woman who sold him Lucky, named Mathilde, whose eyebrows are dyed like a rainbow, and Tess, the college girl with a smile like sunshine even on the worst days.

Grant supposes he’s the brooding, sulking one of their little “team”. Oh joy.

He goes visit his brother once or twice a week, helps him out at the bar whenever Thomas needs a bartender or a bouncer, he has a few acquaintances he doesn’t mind bumping into at the grocery store, and has tons of pets at the clinic he would literally die for.

But yeah, when Skye drops by one night with a tilted head, lopsided smile and a plastic bag hanging in one hand, he finds himself smiling back.

“Considering I intrude all the time, the least I could do is buy you food.”

“I hope this is only junk food, otherwise I’ll kick you out.”

“Who do you think I am ?” She retorts, stepping in and petting Lucky in passing, jumping around her with his tongue lolling out. “I haven’t eaten a vegetable in a week. Of course it’s junk food. Greasy, American junk food.”

And so that, too, becomes a thing.

Kara barges in with a bag on her shoulder, sunglasses in her hair and a smile that blinds him on a fine Friday morning.

“Hey there asshole ! Thought you would miss my awesomeness, so here I am ! What’s for breakfast, I’m starving.”

He blinks, caught right out of bed with a stubble of two days eating his cheeks and a mouthful of toast. Even Lucky yawns before curiously sniffing Kara’s feet, stuck in sandy sandals.

“Hi ?”

“What a warm welcome, I’m touched,” she says, rolling her eyes before wrapping her arm around his neck and manhandling him to the patio, waving a hand at the ocean before her.

“Look at that. What are you doing eating inside with so much beauty right there ?”

She’s got a point.

He kisses her cheek, smiling.

“Do banana pancakes sound good ?”

“Perfect.”

Kara drags him out of the house with Lucky so he would show her around. The setting is pretty much beach, beach, rocks, but she doesn’t seem to care, tilting her face at the sun and enjoying it on her skin.

She doesn’t hide her scar, and that makes him smile even wider.

“Real talk: You came to see me or Thomas ?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Grant Ward does not snicker, but it comes close to it.

“Right.”

“For your information,” she begins haughtily, picking up the stick Lucky just brought back, tail wagging madly, “I missed my best friend and wanted to see how boring your life was getting without me.”

“Living up to expectations ?”

“Even worse,” she teases, throwing the stick as far as she can, Lucky running after it.

She lets them walk in silence for a few minutes, looking at the dog jumping around, stick in his mouth. And then she says:

“So, are _you_ seeing anyone ?”

Instead of choking on his own saliva, which is what Grant expected, he manages to keep himself together and taunt:

“Are you admitting to seeing Thomas ?”

“Whatever.”

He counts six full, blissful minutes before she tries again.

“But really, no one ?”

“Kara. Seriously.”

“I just…” she’s wriggling her hands, which isn’t a good sign, especially accompanied by the frustrated frown on her face. “I want you to be happy.”

And it’s so sweet, really, what is he supposed to say to that ?

“I am happy,” he assures her. “I think.”

Kara nods thoughtfully before smiling wide again.

“First one back to the house gets a foot massage ?”

He’s gone before she even has time to turn around.

She wins, because of course she does, “no one can ever beat Kara Palamas at anything ever” is her new motto.

But really, if they’re honest…

“Lucky won !” He shouts at her, panting, as she waits for him at the turn just before the porch comes into view.

She flips him the bird, which he ignores, and tries to trip him when he passes her, which is more complicated to ignore as he stumbles forward.

He hears Lucky japing happily, and hears her voice just before he turns the corner.

And, indeed, when the front of the house comes into view, he is granted with the sight of Skye in a tank top and jean shorts kneeling before Lucky and complimenting the dog on the stick he brought her back.

Her smile is so bright it hurts, somewhere between his ribs.

“Hey !” She greets when she spots him, and then he’s pushed forward and Skye’s smile falls off her face.

“What the fuck.”

“So.”

He feels like a child being scolded, and he doesn’t like that.

At.

All.

He is a goddamn adult. They’re both in his house. Why does he feel like the child here ?

On the other hand, Skye doesn’t seem to be in a better position than him.

The picture of Kara Palamas with fists on her hips and narrowed eyes is pretty intimidating, he’ll admit.

“So,” he sighs, just to see her turn her eyes on him.

“Do _not_ fuck with me right now, Grant. What is… this ?” She asks, gesturing widely between them.

Skye glances at him.

“What do you think it is ?”

“I don’t know !” Kara yells, before calming herself down and turning towards Skye.

This one accomplishes the curious feat of shrinking herself while straightening up all at once.

“Are you still with Shield ?”

“Yes.”

“Does Coulson know you’re here ?”

She send shim a fleeting look before focusing on Kara again, all business.

“No.”

“Do you plan on arresting him again ?”

“No.”

“Do you plan on communicating any information about him or his location to anyone at Shield ?”

“No.”

“Are you playing him ?”

“No.”

“Do you have a boyfriend ?”

“N… Wait.”

Kara nods thoughtfully.

“Ok. Ok. Not as boring as I thought, Douglas.”

Grant sighs.

“You still owe me a foot massage.”

“Is that… it ?” Skye asks, uncertain.

“For now,” Kara assures. “Just know that I’m keeping an eye on you, Agent Johnson.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

Kara keeps tracks of Skye’s comings and goings, but after seeing their meetings are completely random yet constant and that no one comes knocking on his door with a pistol in hand, she drops it.

It’s not like she and Skye are suddenly best friends, especially since Lucky tends to like Skye a bit more which vexes his friend to no end, but when Grant says the Shield agent came by with a new toy for the dog and a glass to replace the one she broke, she asks him how it went and doesn’t make any snide remarks. Small victories and all.

He tries to teach Skye a bit of French, on the days she’s here, and despite her having to often leave early in the morning, they stay up way into the early hours of dawn. It doesn’t even bother him anymore, that she still works at Shield (it did for a while, the scars on his forearms and side testifying of the damage getting involved with the agent had done him before).

And one late afternoon, he opens his door to find Skye in jeans and a light shirt and a smile that has never looked so wide.

“Hi. I’m Skye Johnson,” she introduces herself, stretching her hand. “I just moved into town.”

Her beam is contagious, and he has to play along and shake her hand.

“Grant Ward. Welcome to the neighborhood.”

They set the table outside so they can eat a few feet from the beach, and she pulls out of her bag a bottle of champagne, to which he grumbles because he should be the one buying a celebration bottle. But she waves his mumbling aside and around dinner, she tells him she quit Shield and bought an apartment twenty minutes away.

They get a little too drunk, they run on the beach with Lucky and she demands he put some music on a speaker.

Then Skye is dancing like this is what she wants to do all her life, with her feet moving in the sand and her long arms twirling above her head, and he thinks he’s never seen her so happy, not even during their time on the Bus.

He wonders if she’s ever been this happy.

And then she comes towards him, takes his hand and makes him twirl despite her petite size making it impossible for him to go under her arm, but she’s laughing and laughing and he finds her more intoxicating than the wine and the beach and the stars altogether.

She manages to push him into the water and when he re-emerges, sputtering, he can’t even find it in himself to be a annoyed, with her laughter more free than he’s ever heard it ringing in the night. She helps him up and he resists the urge to put her down in the sea with him.

Lucky yaps happily all night, only calming down when Grant goes take a shower to wash the salt off him and Skye settles on his terrace with a glass of white wine (she made a face when he proposed her red for the first time).

When Grant comes out, clean and clothed, he joins her. She hands him a glass without him asking, and smiles softly.

“Are you ok ?” He catches himself asking.

Her eyes shine in the night when she tilts her head to assess him for a minute.

He doesn’t move.

“Yeah,” she finally admits. “I think so. It’s kind of hard, of course, but I think it’s time I remembered there is far more to life than Shield.”

“But you love it.”

She shakes her head, taking a sip of wine. Her chapstick leaves a mark on the glass.

“The only reason I joined was to find my parents. And now… Well, I was always one to get attached to people more than to beliefs, I suppose. It just took me a while to realize if I stopped working at Shield, I wouldn’t lose my family.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah,” she smiles at him. “That’s really good.”

Suddenly Skye isn’t just a fixture in his life, she’s everywhere.

She swings by the clinic two days later, saying in broken French she wants to adopt a dog.

Tess shows her around, wiggling her eyebrows at Grant and mouthing stuff he doesn’t want to understand when Skye gushes about a dog or another. She settles on a Belgian Malinois named Schooner, which is a nudge of fate, as she taunts him.

He rolls his eyes at her but memories of battleship seem so close he can almost believe he would be able to grasp them.

It’s ridiculous, how easily she fits in the simple life he made here.

Her dog loves Lucky, and then their walks are made together on the beach, throwing sticks and teasing and talking about things that don’t press on his chest anymore. He doesn’t go for missions often, but when he goes he always informs Skye of it, and she either does dog sitting for him if he doesn’t want to bring Lucky along, or she drops at his house to water the plants she made him buy. When he comes back, he sends her a quick text, and she often comes with ingredients so he can cook (she couldn’t to save her life) to welcome him back, telling him everything he’s missed.

He fixes her bathroom sink because her landlord is a dick, and she buys him dinner to thank him. Skye installs Netflix on his TV because apparently there is a whole world in there, as she puts it, and he has to roll his eyes at her.

“This is stupid,” he slurs, bottle of wine waving towards the screen. “Why would Karen risk her life for him, he doesn’t even deserve this !”

Skye’s face takes on an outraged expression, and he knows he made a mistake seconds before she launches into a rant according to which Frank Castle is a precious cinnamon roll that deserves the world and Karen sees that and he respects her and never admonishes her and compliments her strength and.... he zones out, because Skye talking with so much enthusiasm and red cheeks and shining eyes makes him want to do something stupid like kiss her, and in his state he can’t keep his gaze from trailing her face.

“....plus, she thinks he deserves it, and that’s what matters.”

“But people like this, you know, people like... like who kill and get revenge and dive head first into trouble, being this close to those people, and... and defending them, that’s not smart, that’s... that’s suicide.”

“Maybe she likes the danger. Or maybe she thinks he’s worth it.”

It feels too much like they’re talking about something else, something more and scary, so he just presses replay and watches the rest of the episode.

The silent admission to himself that yes, Karen is awesome and she should totally be with Frank because she wants better for him and he’s ready to comply only for her, comes ten minutes later, and his hand finds Skye’s of its own volition.

They don’t touch often, but she interlaces their fingers without taking her eyes off the screen like it’s natural.

And then, oh damn, she comes by the bar.

It would be fine, really. If not for the heels. And the makeup. And the backless top. And the legs going for days in a black jean slim.

And the fact that she looks around, clearly looking for someone, before spotting him behind the bar and brightening.

He’s pretty sure his heart stops for a second or two (and he knows what that feels like, he lived through it).

“Hi,” she greets, a little breathless, when she slides on a stool at the bar.

He is stunned for a moment.

“Hi. You’re going out ? Living the life ?”

She chuckles, waves a hand dismissively.

“I was never really one for parties, but alcohol, count me in !”

“What do you want to drink ?”

“What are you offering ?” She replies with a coy look.

His heart misses a bit.

“Given your refine tastes and the fact that you’re going home later, a beer ?”

“Perfect.”

He thinks that she’ll take her beer and go have some fun, maybe pick someone up, but she doesn’t. Instead, she turns down every proposal she gets and hangs out at the bar, sipping her beer slowly, drawing him into conversations every time he has five seconds away from clients. He feels a bit guilty that she stays near him instead of dancing and generally enjoying her night, but she waves his concern aside and tells him she is enjoying herself.

Besides, he likes having her here. A lot.

It must show, because Thomas nudges him until he accepts to finish his shift right now and go hang out with her.

He’s far too glad to do so.

“You might wanna go first, with your lack of natural talent and all.”

“Don’t play merciful, Grant,” she snarls at him.

They might or might not take this shit a little too seriously.

“This is a game. There is no mercy.”

“I’m going to crush you.”

“I’m gonna destroy you into oblivion.”

“And I,” Thomas interrupts, rolling his eyes in passing, “am going to take those darts and shove them up your ass if you don’t start playing right away.”

“You can’t rush perfection, Thomas.”

“Thank you Grant.”

“I was talking about me.”

“Deluded man. I guess that’s what solitude does to you.”

“What solitude ?” He snorts. “You’re always at my house bothering me.”

“You like it.”

“Whatever. Throw your goddamn dart, Skye.”

He wins, because he’s been trained to blend in every setting imaginable, and his aim is impeccable while hers is just slightly off on the left.

She grumbles for fifteen minutes before deciding she is gonna try beating him at pool which, in her drunken state, is quite confidently mistaken.

He lets her win anyway, and the smile on her face when she whoops and almost falls on her ass is the only reward he needs.

Fitz contacts him in the most Fitz-like manner: he drops in the booth in front of him while Grant is taking a coffee at the nice coffee shop that suddenly becomes much less nice.

Lucky growls, but Grant shushes him and stares right back at the man.

“So.”

“So.”

That feels like a déjà-vu.

“You’re finally dating Skye ?”

“You’re finally dating Simmons ?” He shoots back.

Fitz doesn’t sputter like he expected him to, although his ears do turn bright red. That must reassure his dog (even animals can’t resist his charm, apparently), because Lucky puts his head on Fitz’s thigh, demanding to be pet.

He complies.

“Maybe.”

“No.”

The surprise on the engineer’s face is poorly concealed, and Grant crooks an eyebrow, awaiting the upcoming tirade.

“Look, I don’t... understand, what this is, between you too, and I don’t know how the hell it came to be, but... she’s happy. She’s been happy, I noticed. So, if you make her happy...”

“It’s not me,” he replies, and finds out that the truth of this statement is oddly satisfying. “She has friends here. She’s looking for a job at social services, which she could practice from home. She has a life, entirely of her own, a life that has nothing to do with me.”

“But she moved here because of you, or for you, I don’t know.”

He shrugs. His chest feels too warm.

“I don’t know why Skye does what she does.”

“Just...” Fitz sighs, rubbing his eyes, and Grant suddenly feels bad.

“I’m not going to hurt her, or anything like that. I won’t break her heart if that’s what you’re worried about. She might break mine again, who knows ? We don’t even know if we’re going down this path or not. We’re… friends.”

Fitz snorts.

“Ok. But be warned, Ward; I’ll stop by sometimes.”

“That would be nice for her. Be sure to bring food when you do though, she only ever eats garbage when I’m not around.”

His hands clutch like he kind of wants to strangle him, but then he sighs again, choosing to pet the dog instead of commit murder.

“Yeah. I’ll bring food. Maybe I’ll put some poison in your share.”

Hindsight allows him to chuckle a bit and not think the engineer actually means it.

“That would be a shame.”

“Yeah. Skye would never get over it, now that you’re finally a decent guy.”

Skye comes to have dinner with him Wednesday, and the day has been pretty great. Brida, a ten years old dog, has been adopted by a family of three children that wouldn’t stop petting her all the way out of the shelter. Tess cried and hugged him when he awkwardly gave her his gift to congratulate her for her Bachelor, and Kara sent him a selfie of her and Thomas, who dropped by to visit her in Singapore.

So, yes, a pretty good day it was.

This warm feeling he’s been carrying around in his chest since morning is only enhanced by Skye sitting next to him on his couch, shouting at the Tv despite her mouthful and gesturing her slice of pizza at the screen when she’s annoyed.

Yeah. It’s pretty good.

And when Skye pauses the movie and turns to him to announce with trembling fear in her voice that she found a job at the local social services, consisting in doing background checks and finding a good home for orphans, he has to wind his arms around her and squeeze tight.

“This is awesome,” he assures in her hair. “You’re gonna do great.”

She laughs breathlessly against his neck, his shirt bundled between her fingers, and then she looks up to meet his eyes.

Her smile is so sweet it makes his breath itch.

“Thank you.”

So far into the day, so good. He takes a chance and leans down to press his mouth on hers.

She isn’t even a bit fazed, and really, when has he ever managed to surprise her ? She kisses him back without a second of hesitation, hands going up, on the back of his head and neck to pull him closer.

He bites her lower lip, drawing from her the same sound he prompted in Providence, and he loses his breath, loses all sense of reality except for Skye, Skye, Skye and her loose hair slipping between his fingers and her red lips and her warm and reassuring skin under his touch when he dares to wander under her top.

Not one to be outdone, she maneuvers her body until she’s in his lap, thighs bracketing his hips tightly, and then she’s ferocious, almost too brutal, almost too much, holding her breath and taking his away and he doesn’t stand a chance against her because she’s a goddamn hurricane, a small apocalypse shaking in his arms.

“Easy,” he mutters against her lips as she pants, entire body trembling slightly. He trails his hands up her back, sliding one in her hair to tilt her head aside, and Grant places a kiss on her neck.

She jerks against him, a whine spurting from her throat.

“Easy,” he whispers again, kissing the side of her face, before capturing her mouth once more.

It’s slow, soothing, and he feels her relax under his touch, taking her time.

“Grant,” she heaves when he pulls back.

At the lack of answer or further contact, she opens her eyes. A smile appears on her face.

“Hi.”

He chuckles. Her fingers trail down the side of his face, brushing the scar on his forehead, before tracing his lips.

“I thought you’d hate me,” she whispers.

“I thought you’d hate _me_.”

“I don’t hate you,” she smiles, pressing a fast peck on his lips.

“Good. I don’t hate you too.”

They go back to making out like horny teenagers but it’s ok, it’s good, and he is still trying to grasp the fact that Skye, his Skye, the one who complained so much about her morning training sessions, the one who wiped the floor with him at battleship, the one who got _shot_ and almost died and whose blood was on his hands, the Skye who assured him he was a good man and kissed him and made him want to be whom she thought he was, this Skye, is kissing him like it’s the last thing she’ll ever do.

Her thighs tighten even more when she grinds against him, and a choked sound escapes her throat, between a moan and a cry.

She leaves his lips to roam his neck, focusing mainly on his pulse point, and she huskily pants in his ear:

“Maybe we can take this to the bedroom.”

His chest feels strangely constructed, and his hands clench on her back.

“Maybe,” he gulps, “Maybe we can wait a little.”

Lorelei laughs in his ear, but Skye smiles softly at him, threading her fingers through his hair.

“However long you need, as long as I can kiss you.”

And that’s just Skye in a nutshell.

His life doesn’t exactly change after that, it stays the exact same except now he gets to take her hand and kiss the smile off her face and place kisses on the column of her neck whenever he wishes, making her go a little crazy with want, as she grumbles once.

It’s good as well, not to be expected to have sex right away, not to be forced to do anything with Lorelei still hovering sometimes, when Skye’s fingers slide down and her lips leave scorching kisses on his skin. It’s the first time in his life he can do things because he wants to do them, where he is gifted with his own free will.

And he loves it, and he loves her, and a hot summer day filled with her laughter at their dogs’ antics and the twirls of her pink dress he realizes he’s been such a dumbass.

Because she’s beautiful and so goddamn hot and warm and she’s learning French and she feels like home, and he’s a goddamn idiot for waiting this long when she is here and more than willing.

So he takes her hand, brings her inside the bedroom after closing the door so the dogs won’t disturb, and then he’s kissing her like that’s the way he wants to go.

His hands grasp at every part of her body, leaving no place to question his motives.

“Does this mean we’re past moving slow ?” She asks breathlessly against his lips, and he can’t even chuckle because all the pent-up desire he’s been repressing since she showed up on his doorstep is overwhelming.

“This means you’re taking your dress off.”

She giggles, the sound a harsh remembrance of their time on the Bus, but it’s still beautiful and so inherently Skye he has to taste the joy stumbling from her lips.

Her hands tug on his shirt until he complies and lets her take it off him. Her fingers press into his skin, but instead of tubbing him closer, she pushes him back so he sits on the edge of the bed.

She takes her sweet time staring at him while unzipping her dress and shimmying out of it.

The amount of tan skin revealed makes him go a little stupid, especially when she smiles widely, hands on her hips like she isn’t simply standing in black underwear:

“I’m gonna rock your world,” she taunts, wiggling her eyebrows.

“You already did.”

“Oh my God,” she chuckles, stepping between his knees and pressing her fingers into his cheeks, “shut _up_ -“

He cuts off her reply, preferring her little moans and groans to her snarky comments (although he loves those as well; he’s a sucker for everything Skye does anyway).

“It’s not fair,” she mumbles, not lifting her mouth from his.

“What ?”

She sighs, trailing kisses down his neck, pushing him back so he’s laid down on the bed and she can keep traveling south.

“What ?” He insists, letting her have her way with him because this is Skye and she can do whatever she wants to him. 

“You’re just… Look at those,” she complains, patting his abs, and he goes into full belly laugh without wanting to. “Yeah, go ahead and laugh, but it’s so unfair, the abs, the beard, the _arms_ …And those goddamn hands, Grant, you just…”

She pouts. Fuck, she’s so beautiful.

“What about my hands ?” He smirks, brushing his fingers on her cheek.

She sighs, leaning into his touch with her eyes still intent on his face.

“I just had way too many dreams about them is all.”

“Yeah ?” He asks, and even to his ears it sounds breathless. “What kind ?”

“You know what kind you smug bastard.”

He urges her up by pulling on her hair, which earns him a little chuckle, and he flips them over abruptly.

There is far too much skin for him to ignore, and so he begins on her neck, moving down at her appreciative mumbles.

“What exactly happened, in those dreams of yours ?”

“You want me to spill them out for you, big boy ?”

He nips at her collarbone, making her chuckle again.

“Well, there was a lot less clothes involved, that’s for sure.”

“We can fix that.”

“And your hands weren’t just sitting on my hips.”

“We can fix that, too,” he says against her skin while undoing her bra.

She arches her back to help him some and then he’s lavishing her breasts and she’s reduced to a gasping form, fingers gripping his hair almost violently but he’s not about to complain.

“That fulfill your fantasies yet ?” He murmurs, his tongue sweeping at her nipple before descending the valley of her breasts.

“Not even close,” she heaves.

Skye wiggles her hips and he has to laugh even as his fingers tuck her underwear down her legs, even as the naked woman beneath him arches in his touch and whispers praise after praise.

His lips go down and down and he teases and taunts until Skye huffs and pulls his head lower still. He muffles his laugh in the skin of her thigh.

“Grant, I swear to God…”

“Relax. Wouldn’t want to ruin expectations now, would we ?”

“There’s nothing to ruin, you’re not fucking _doing_ anything !”

He hushes her, nipping at her inner thigh and just when she’s about to snap at him he gives her two fingers, making her back bow and her words get strangled in her throat.

He works her for so long he forgets that there is a world outside this room, that there is something else than the woman he’s in love with gradually unfolding like paper under his touch. There is a point where he’s painfully hard and yet he keeps on going because she’s all he’s wanted in years, and she’s finally here and he wants to taste every inch of her body and hear every sound she can make and draw everything he can from her.

But Skye has other ideas and she scrambles for his head, whispering unclear demands and pressing him to do more, and more he intends to do when she asks for it like that. His fingers respond to her unintelligible plea as he decides on torturing her a bit more, and kisses her navel, feeling her muscles work under his lips.

“Say my name” he requires against her sternum, desperate for her recognition of what is happening and eager to tease her as well. 

“Grant Douglas Ward,” she pants.

He pinches her thigh, making her gasp-laugh, as he grumbles.

“Not my full name. Too bad,” he sighs, crawling back up her body, not an inch of skin separate from hers, “that’s kind of a turn off.”

He kisses her nose and she wraps her legs around his waist, pulling him closer still.

“Oh, I’m sure we can figure out a way to turn you back on.”

“Sure ? You know, I’m a spy, I’m used to interrogation techniques, I can...”

She grabs the back of his neck and pulls him down, muffling his chuckle.

Skye is, to no surprise, a dirty talk passionate. He is more restrained, more contained and silent, hardly expressing what he wants, because that’s what he’s been taught his whole life -to obey and give without question until there’s nothing left.

She makes it her mission to make him talk to her and tell her what he seeks, what he wants to do to her or what he wants her to do to him.

It’s... incredibly hot, and new, and sweet, and all the things in between that make him forget about Lorelei completely.

When they’re spent and their bodies are glistening with perspiration, Skye glues herself to his body, cuddling him despite the sweat and the heat and her hair spread on his skin.

Again, he’s not about to complained.

Her eyes take on an incredibly sad expression as her fingers trace the two scars on his side. He brushes the hair out of her face, assuring:

“It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“Yeah it does.”

“Skye.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok.”

“No Grant it’s not. It’s not ok.”

He thinks about what she’s really saying, with her sad eyes full of something more, with her hands trying to make him believe he’s worth something, with her unwavering indignation at the way he’s been treated.

He thinks about all of it and says:

“I accept your apology.”

She smiles and it’s brighter than the sun pouring through the glass door.

When he’ll see Jemma, shame will creep up on him and he won’t be able to sleep.

When he’ll see Bobbi, it’ll be more awkward than ever because Kara is his best friend and nothing will erase the scar on her face.

But he’ll laugh at Hunter’s stupid jokes and see Kara often and introduce Thomas to them and be on the receiving hand of Fitz’s friendly eye roll, and Skye will kiss him discreetly when no one’s looking because she’s ridiculously soft like that and he loves it. In the mornings, he won’t be surprised that she’s still in his bed, snoring softly against his back because she loves being the big spoon although her petite body doesn’t cover his own.

And when he asks her to move in, half her stuff is already in their house, so she smiles and mocks “finally”.

The flower buds in his soul blossom. Yeah, he’s happy.

Finally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap, I hope you enjoyed this enormous beast !  
> Feel free to comment on what you liked or disliked, especially about PTSD and mental illnesses (I'm far from a professional on those). I hope I portrayed them well,  
> Thank you all so much for reading ! 
> 
> PS- Yes, I know, the Punisher exists in the Marvel Universe, but whatever, here it's a Tv show (and it's awesome, totally recommend).

**Author's Note:**

> Aos writers really did us dirty with the writing of Ward's character, soI decided, fuck them, I love him and I'm gonna write the ending he deserves.  
> They completely disregarded the abuse he suffered all his life, and wrote in season 2 a character that was completely different from the character in Season 1, who wasn't a perfect character, far from it, but was fiercely loyal and tried to do what he thought was right. I love Kara Palamas so much, and they disregarded her trauma as well in favor of making her the villain so Bobbi could be the hero.  
> In any case, I thought this part of the season didn't make any damn sense, and I'll never not be pissed off about it, especially considering the victim blaming, disregarding of abuse and trauma, and utter hypocrisy this show has displayed.  
> I'm so mad at them, honestly.  
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed and it wasn't too heavy, thank you so much for reading !


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